


Children of Fire

by lyn452



Series: Children of Fire [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Children, Denial, F/M, Guilt, Incest, Politics, Regret, Religion, Resurrection, Revenge, Sibling Incest, Tragic Romance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-14 14:26:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyn452/pseuds/lyn452
Summary: Post Season 8. Drogon takes his mother to Volantis where she is revived along with the children she carries. Children who will follow their mother’s path.





	1. Essos

**Author's Note:**

> Well, let’s try to fix some of that shitshow of season with a super unoriginal idea. Hand me my clown makeup, tinfoil hat and leave me be. (Also, fair warning, I’ve moved to acceptance on the show’s ending, so if you want the vengeful, burn them all fic, this will not satisfy that urge.)

Daenerys woke in her son’s flames. Later she would think it fitting, she gave birth to him in a funeral pyre and he returned the gift on her own. But when her eyes opened and she gasped for breath, she felt only fear. Her eyes darted, looking for Jon, unsure if she was afraid to find him or afraid not to.

He’d killed her. That was the first fact that entered her mind as she took in the red priests and priestesses that surrounded her. They looked at her with a hungry awe that scared her and she wished she had someone to comfort her, to shield her. Her arms wrapped around so that she could hug herself.

She was alone in this world. She always had been. Her chest exploded in pain. He’d killed her. The only man she’d ever truly loved and he’d murdered her. She had thought him honest and true, and he’d kissed her as he lied to her and betrayed her.

Jon. Daenerys tried to stand, but her legs were too weak. Kinvara came forward, supporting her weight. “Careful, my queen. You have been dead for several days, you’ll need time to regain your strength.” 

Daenerys heard the words but they were too large for her mind to process. The strange faces scared her. Until her eyes landed on Drogon. Her son looked so happy, so eager to see her. Daenerys wanted to reach out and comfort him. She put out a hand and the dragon stepped forward, cooing at the touch.

It warmed Daenerys’ heart to hear. The warmth of the leathery skin comforted her. Her son lived. She was not alone. Daenerys wanted to leap forward, wrap her arms around Drogon and have him fly them both away to somewhere no one would ever find them. But she was too weak. She knew she needed time before she could fly again.

She looked to the Red Priestess, the one that told her that she was the Princess who was Promised. She wanted to be angry at the woman for lying to her, but she wanted information first. “Where am I?”

“Volantis,” Kinvara answered.

Daenerys nodded, glad to be back in Essos rather than Westeros. She never wanted to step foot on that awful place she once thought of as home again.

He had murdered her. She had she really been so wrong? What had Jon said once, ages ago on that boat? “I tried to help save them, save everyone, and they murdered me for it.”

Wasn’t that what she had done? She had fought the dead with the rest of them. She had saved them. She had sacrificed so much for them without as much as a thank you in return. She had offered to rule with him, equally. She had given him everything. And he’d killed her in turn.

She had burned innocent women and children running and screaming in King’s Landing out of pure hatred. Daenerys tried to stop the memory. Tried to stop the guilt, but it was there too. Her feelings were too mixed and disoriented to sort through. She felt like she was still trapped in the world beyond, not quite returned to this one.

Jon had never talked about coming back from the dead aside from that one brief explanation of his scars; it had clearly disturbed him, so she let him be. Let him have his secrets. She knew now. She knew the first feelings of disorientation, of wrongness.

Of betrayal. He’d murdered her. She loved him. He kissed her and then he stabbed her. In the heart. Now she would have a scar to match his. Her hands flew to the angry red welt.

Daenerys wretched to the side. She expected to vomit, but nothing came. When had she eaten last? That spider Varys had been poisoning her, so she hadn’t wanted any food prepared by another. She hadn’t felt hungry anyway. Her tears came instead.

He’d murdered her, the man she loved.

She had murdered thousands, innocents. Men, women and children she was supposed to protect as queen.

Jon had kissed her as he plunged in the blade.

She had wanted to world to burn, to reforge it into something new, something better. Let those who hated her die.

Jon’s last words to her had been, “You are my queen, now and always.”

“Let it be fear then,” that’s what she had said to him the night before.

Daenerys listed to the side, catching herself before she could fall. The High Priestess was by her side in an instant. “Don’t worry, my queen.” Kinvara put her hand on Daenerys’ stomach. “Your children live with you. The dragons will rise again. Children of fire and flame. The promised bringers of light. With the Ice banished, Fire shall reign.”

Daenerys didn’t understand, but she looked to the hand over the slight bump her belly had formed. She placed her own on the bump that was definitely real. It was as if her body was no longer her own. She would carry no living child.

But she didn’t carry a child, according to the priestess. And were they really living now? They were children of a dead man and a dead woman both risen again.

The Night King had risen his White Walkers, what in the seven hells had she and Jon produced?

 

 

* * *

 

Shockingly, the birth wasn’t a difficult one. The girl came out first, her brother followed. Daenerys wept as she held the two perfect babes in her arms. They stopped crying the moment their heads touched her breasts.

Daenerys thought about all that had happened. It was worth it. For these two miracles, the world could’ve burned or been overwhelmed by the Army of the Dead and it would have been worth it. Daenerys heart filled in a way it never had before and everything else became secondary. Her anger and desire for revenge on Westeros left her. All that mattered were these two babies. Her children, which included Drogon, were all that mattered to her now.

Daenerys named the girl Rhaella, after her mother. Her thumb fingered the ring she still wore, which she would give to her daughter someday. She was no longer in a position to give her children the throne they might have deserved in another life, but she would give them what she could.

She thought of naming the boy Aegon, but Jon’s face appeared in her mind and Daenerys decided against it. There had been too many Aegons in their family anyway, most of them unimpressive. She named him Daeron instead.

Daenerys didn’t know that Jon had always admired the young dragon. That she’d inadvertently named her son after his father’s favorite Targaryen. She probably would have picked another name if she had known.

She knows that someday these children will ask about their father, and she knows she’ll never tell them more than she has to. If this God of Light truly did see her as his representation on Planetros, her children would never know their father, never meet the man.

Jon Snow would never disappoint them, as he did her.

 

 

* * *

 

Daenerys wanted to leave Volantis, as she didn’t trust these priestesses and priests. She didn’t want her children worshiped. She knew the the price that came from thinking yourself above others. But she didn’t know where she could go.

Westeros was in chaos, they told her. The Five Kingdoms constantly warring with each other. The North’s population had been decimated by the wars and the starvation from Winter. Dorne had declared its independence and was the only kingdom thriving because of their trade with Essos.

The great families were positioning for power, but none succeeded against their king’s powers. Daenerys had never really understood what Bran’s powers were, but they were enough to gain him a crown and keep it, so she had to respect them. She stopped listening to the gossip, not caring what happened to the land that took everything from her.

Dragon’s Bay was thriving, and slavery had not been restored, to Daenerys’ delight. She often thought of returning to Meereen, living in the Great Pyramid once more. What stopped her was the assassin blades Tyrion was sure to send after her if he ever found out she lived. She would not let Rhaella and Daeron grow up in the same state of constant fear she had. They were safe as long as no one knew about them.

Both children were proving themselves to be true Targaryens though. Daeron asked for a practice sword for his last birthday and Rhaella wanted daggers shortly after. Both were training with their weapons, and their progress was good according to their trainer. Daenerys would never stop them from gaining the ability to protect themselves, but she never watched them either. She didn’t want to see them prepare for their own conquering.

She knew that’s where it would lead. She understood the blood that called for them to seek out other lands and people. They were constantly asking questions and reading everything about Westeros and Essos they could get their hands on. Daenerys hated answering their questions about the lands she’d seen, as her travels were all painful memories now, but she did the best she could.

The worst questions were the ones they asked about their father. Daeron looked just like her, violet eyes and silver hair, but Rhaella possessed her father’s dark curls. She told them the truth, but never fully. Neither she nor they were ready for that. “He was a great warrior who fought bravely against the Army of the Dead in the Great War.”

Daeron’s brow always scrunched at this. “Did he die in the war?”

Daenerys licked her lips. “No.”

Rhaella asked, “Then where is he? Why isn’t he with us?”

Daenerys always saddened at the question, at the life that might have been if they’d never learned the truth. Her and Jon ruling together, raising their children together. She had always imagined he would be a good father. “I don’t think he’s alive, my lovelies.”

Which was true. Daenerys didn’t know for sure, but she did know that Grey Worm and Drogon weren’t likely to let her death go unavenged.

Though Jon Snow had more luck than sense. How many times had she seen him escape death? She’d kissed the scars from his own resurrection. She knew it was just as likely that he lived.

But she feared they might seek him out, if he lived. She didn’t know how the man would react to that. He probably wouldn’t kill them as he had her, but she had been sure he wouldn’t do that to her either, so she didn’t trust such feelings anymore.

Her daughter accepted her mother’s answers, believing her father died, but Daeron never fully believed her. Daenerys saw how his bright violet eyes narrowed in disbelief. He would want answers someday, Daenerys knew. Answers she still wasn’t ready to give.

 

 

* * *

 

Volantis was a prison as much as a sanctuary. Daenerys rode on Drogon every day, sometimes taking her children with her, though the Lord of the Light followers always tried to prevent all three from riding Drogon at once. Frightened that their living gods might leave them. It wasn’t an unfounded fear.

Daenerys often thought of taking her children and running away. If she’d known where Grey Worm and the Unsullied were, she might have done it. But such information was never passed to her. And she had no way of knowing who she could trust to find such a thing out. So she remained a prisoner here, for the safety of her children.

She could not trust these people. Could not trust anyone. No one ever helped her for nothing, even as a girl under Viserys’ thumb, Daenerys understood that. She knew these people meant to worship her children. She wanted to flee, find some cottage nowhere. She wouldn’t let the same hubris that destroyed her take down her children as well. But where could she hide with Drogon?

So she refused the ceremonies of worship they wanted, though her children were instructed in the faith. Her son took to it more than her daughter. He told her about what he heard in the flames and saw in his dreams. “Like Daenys the dreamer,” Daenerys said, one day as she prepared lunch for her children.

“No, mother,” Daeron corrected with a pout. “I dream of wolves, not dragons. I climb into their skins.”

Rhaella perked up. “I do that too. I become a big wolf in some winter climate somewhere, hunting and running.”

Daenerys didn’t notice the plates slipping from her hands and smashing on the tiled floor.

 

 

* * *

 

The day came when he was on the cusp of manhood, but still too soon for Daenerys’ tastes. Daeron asked about his father. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me. I know it’s bad. You never talk about him but to say he was a warrior and a king. That he fought against the dead.” Daeron, always serious, his eyes violet but Jon’s just the same. “How did you die mother? I know you were resurrected with us. I’ve seen the scar on your chest.” A flash of anger crossed his features. “Who dared to kill dragons?”

Daenerys took her boy’s hands into her own. “It was in Westeros, I had lost so much, everyone who meant something to me. Most of my advisors were plotting behind my back, calling me mad. I had just watched two dear friends die. I had worked to regain everything my family had lost my entire life, just to see it slip from my hands at what should have been my moment of triumph.” Daenerys caught herself, ashamed of the memory of what she’d done, but she pressed on. “I burned King’s Landing to the ground with Drogon, destroying enemies, friends and innocents alike.”

Daeron’s eyes widened at this confession, but he didn’t remove his hands from hers. He didn’t recoil back in horror at what she had done. Daenerys continued, “I wanted to build a new world. I wanted to make it better for everyone. Let them be free, but I needed power to do it. The power that comes from fear. I wanted to reforge the world for my children.” Daenerys remembered that day with such sorrow. She had just learned from the maester who’d looked her over after the battle that she was carrying a child. She had been so excited to tell Jon, she hadn’t noticed his sorrow.

She hadn’t picked up on the need to protect herself from him.

Lost in memory, Daeron asked, “Mother, who held the blade? Who killed you?”

In that moment Daenerys realized her son already knew the answer. She wondered if he’d figured it out for himself or heard it in the flames. Still, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and confirmed it for him, “Jon Snow.”

Daeron’s jaw was hard as he nodded. “He’s alive, you know.” Daenerys felt her heart stop at her son’s words. “They banished him to the Wall for killing you. That was his punishment.”

She wanted to ask how he knew that, but her son was clever and always seeking new information. It didn’t matter which trader he spoke to. Daenerys pushed back a lock of her son’s hair, much the way she used to with Jon. “Daeron, your father was a good man, even if he did an awful thing.”

Finally, he stepped away from her. “I know. I won’t kill him. I’m no kinslayer.” He scowled and Daenerys knew despite her son’s words, he was furious with the father he’d never known. That if he ever met him, he might forget what he’d said, as she had forgotten things before.

He moved to walk away, but before he left, he threw over his shoulder, “Rhaella might though. She’d kill him for what he did to you, and I won’t stop her.”

 

 

* * *

 

Arya Stark had spent decades on her ship, had known so many adventures. She felt home calling for her, but she didn’t answer that, not wanting to see what waited in Westeros. She didn’t want to see Gendry married to some other woman and their children. Didn’t want to impose on Sansa and the family she had surely built. Didn’t want to look for her brother at the Wall or the one on the throne.

But still, she longed for her family. So as a compromise, she returned to Essos to resupply. She thought of going back to Braavos, but instead sailed for Volantis, the home to her dead brother’s wife. She had never met Talisa and recently had been wondering what she had been like. If Robb was anything like Jon, he probably had terrible taste in women.

She was still curious as to what the woman Robb gave up his kingdom for. She landed and went exploring as her crew began the resupply. She gave them a week of rest as well.

Volantis was not Braavos, as she assumed it would be. Slaves filled the streets here and the people were far more religious. She found her way to Red Temple; it made the Great Sept look like a shack. She explored the temple, curious about this strange fire religion.

She found something in a courtyard where a young girl had a man with flames tattooed across his cheeks. “Some Fiery Hand guard you are, can’t even beat a small girl who knows nothing of fighting.” The girl was twirling her knife in a way that proved her an instant liar.

Arya smirked. She liked this child; she reminded her of herself as a girl.

The man snorted as he stood. “Right, you practice with your knives more than your brother with his sword.”

“Daeron prefers books. Besides, he can beat most of you with that sword of his, so I wouldn’t dismiss him just yet.”

Daeron, a Targaryen name, it made Arya stiffen. But she supposed the Targaryens favored Valyrian names, a common thing she found in this city. Volantis had worshiped Valyria and considered themselves the lost city’s closest successor.

She watched as the girl continued to practice, wearing out one guard after another. She noticed that the girl was good, but there was still room for improvement. The girl could use more fluidity, perhaps a water dancer would help her. It would help her move quicker.

Arya waited until the girl was alone, then she stepped out from the shadows. “You’re good,” she complimented.

The girl immediately had her knives out, ready to attack. Arya supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by the distrust. Only fools blindly trusted strangers. “I don’t know you. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Arya smiled, trying to put the girl at ease. “I’m Arya Stark. What’s your name?”

Rather than putting the girl at ease, she seemed to tense more. “Stark. From Westeros?”

“Yes,” she stayed calm. “You know Westeros?”

The girl nodded. “It’s a rotten pit full of barbarians who would rather see their country destroyed then open their minds to anything different.”

Arya was taken aback by the harsh words. She knew it wasn’t an uncommon thought in Volantis. They had no love for her home here. But this girl spoke the hatred with such venom, as though she herself had been done wrong by the country. Arya felt defensive and refused to let this stranger insult the home she loved. “Westeros isn’t so bad. You’ve lived in Volantis all your life?”

Reluctantly the girl nodded. Arya continued, “I’ve traveled the world, seen so many different lands. It’s natural to revere your home and take its views as your own, but not always correct.”

The girl seemed to relax a bit at those words though she didn’t put her knives away. “What do you want from me?”

Arya smiled. “A name would be nice to start.”

“You don’t know who I am?” The girl seemed surprised, but Arya couldn’t guess why she would be.

After a moment of silence passed, the girl relented. “Rhaella, my name is Rhaella.”

Another Valyrian name, like the old queen. “Last name?”

The girl considered her answer for a moment before she said, “I believe in your homeland it would be Snow.”

A bastard. Just like Jon. Arya had even more questions as to why a bastard would be in the Red Temple training with the Fiery Hand. But she kept them to herself for now. This girl didn’t seem foolish enough to answer them anyway. “Those men taught you how to fight, didn’t they? The guards.”

Reluctantly, Rhaella nodded. Arya continued, “They are trying to teach you how to overpower your enemy, but you are too little, you must learn differently. You’re good, but you need to perfect your fluidity and speed.”

Rhaella seemed taken aback. Ayra smiled, “I can show you.”

The girl considered it before assenting. As Ayra took out Needle, Rhaella warned, “If you kill me, they’ll burn you alive.”

Arya smirked. “They’d have to catch me first.”

“They'll catch you.” She said it with the surety only a child knew.

“Don’t be so sure.” Arya looked around and then whispered, “I can steal faces.”

For the first time, Rhaella’s guard dropped and her violet eyes sparkled. “Can you show me how to do that too?”

 

* * *

 

Arya Stark was here and Daenerys couldn’t feel safe. She stayed hidden in her room. Daeron also took measures to avoid the woman, but Rhaella sought her out. It made Daenerys nervous, but she knew it was Rhaella’s father’s blood calling to its kin. Rhaella had her father’s hair and his heart as well. Daenerys often thought of her as Visenya reborn, as she loved her daggers and thrilled in fighting.

It was small wonder she found much in common with the assassin Stark.

That might have been where it stayed, with Rhaella delighting in her new friend, if not for Arya talking of her brother and of the mad Dragon Queen he heroically killed. Rhaella barely kept her temper, Daenerys learned later, but rushed straight to her mother’s door. She pounded on it until Daenerys opened it.

She was shocked to find her strong daughter in tears, “Is it true?”

Daenery didn’t know what Rhaella was talking about, but she ushered her baby girl inside to let her cry without any eyes on her. Rhaella despised weakness as much as any Targaryen, and Daenerys wouldn’t let her daughter’s emotions be public knowledge. They sat on Daenerys’ bed. Rhaella repeated, “Is it true?”

Daenerys comforted her child as she hadn’t in years, bringing her to her breast. “Is what true, my lovely?”

“Did he kill you? Our father, Jon Snow. Was he the one that murdered you?”

Daenerys had always thought Daeron had told his sister what he learned, but clearly she hadn’t known. “Yes,” she answered.

Rhaella began to cry as Daenerys told her the full story of what happened in Westeros. She told her everything: how they met, how they fell in love, the war against the Army of the Dead, the loss that drove her to despair and madness, what evil she did that drove Jon to what evil he did. Rhaella took it all in, her tears eventually drying. When it ended, she mumbled, “I always wondered why you avoided men. Why you flinched when one tried to touch you.”

Daenerys hadn’t realized that her daughter noticed such things. While Daenerys doubted she could still be called the most beautiful woman in the world, as she had in her youth, she was still pretty. She didn’t lack for admirers, but she turned them all away. No matter how lonely her bed got sometimes.

Jon had ruined her for love. She had loved him with everything she had, and it hadn’t been enough. She refused to make that mistake again.

Rhaella wiped away the last traces of her tears, her sorrow turning to anger. “We should kill them all.” Her glare burned. “And we should start with her.”

Daenerys didn’t need to ask who “her” was. “Kinslaying is a grievous sin, my girl.”

“She’s no kin of mine,” Rhaella replied.

Daenerys took her daughter’s cheeks, her thumbs wiping away the last traces of tears. “She is, my girl. She is your cousin. And she’s done nothing to deserve your wrath.”

“She praised your death, mother. That’s enough.”

Daenerys didn’t want her children to make her mistakes. “No, Rhae. It’s not. I had become a monster. My death was deserved.” It took a long time for Daenerys to accept that, but she saw it as the truth now. Jon hadn’t been wrong to stop her.

“It was my death too, mother. She celebrates that I died. Killed by my own father.”

Daenerys found she had no answer to that, but just hugged her child again, grateful to have been granted this gift.

 

* * *

 

Arya was sad to leave. In Rhaella, she found the family she’d missed. Though the girl had turned icy in their final days together, Arya assumed it was so that it would hurt less when she left. She appreciated it, but didn’t want their time together to end. She sent a runner with a message for the girl to meet her on the docks as Arya helped her men load the ship. In the message Arya indicated it was to say good-bye, but she hoped it might be more.

Rhaella came, riding on a silver steed. A cloaked man followed her on his own black horse, Arya assumed he was a guard though Rhaella could protect herself fine. The man stayed back with the horses as Rhaella walked to the docks. Arya smiled at the sight of the girl she’d grown fond of, leaping from the boat to hug her.

Rhaella didn’t return the hug and seemed to flinch away at the contact. Arya didn’t understand and was hurt by her friend’s actions. But she pulled away.

Her guard was up again, Arya noticed. As bad as it had been when they first met. Rhaella seemed ready for the hidden blade to come out and kill her. Arya didn’t like this change, but still she acted as though nothing was wrong. “We’re setting sail for the east of Ib. It should be quite an adventure.”

“I hope the seas are kind,” Rhaella said in response.

It was polite but showed none of the enthusiasm Arya had hoped for. She asked, “I wanted you to join us. You’re too limited here. Join me. Come adventuring. It’s what you built for.”

Rhaella sighed and took a step back. “I was built for family and love, like most humans. I won’t leave them behind.”

Family. Arya had never heard Rhaella mention a family. She’d certainly never met them. She was hurt. Did she trust her so little? “Why didn’t you introduce me to them?”

“You didn’t want to meet them. You wouldn’t have any love for them, and they wouldn’t have any love for you. Why bother?”

Arya sensed the lie in the girl’s words. “What’s the real reason?”

Rhaella didn’t hide her surprise at being found out. But she recovered quickly and sighed. “The man I intend to marry is here. I won’t leave him.”

“A man,” Arya scoffed. “That’s your excuse? There are plenty of men to be found all over.”

“Perhaps, but I’ve found a good man who loves me. It’s not an excuse, it’s a purpose. Only northern fools throw away love so carelessly as your family.”

A shadow passed over Arya’s face as she thought of the man she threw away. Not that Rhaella could possibly know about Gendry Baratheon.  “What do you mean?”

Rhaella didn’t answer her, but she went to her brother’s waiting arms. It was the first time Arya Stark had ever seen Daeron Targaryen. His appearance unsettled her, but she didn’t question it. She merely climbed aboard her ship to return to her journeys and adventures. But the face haunted her, it was so familiar, even though she reassured herself it meant nothing.

The Targaryens were gone.

When she saw Drogon flew over Volantis as she left, she told herself that was coincidence too. After all, it was where the dragon was last spotted. Dragons made nests and stayed near them. She knew he was around here.

The Targaryens were gone.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys found Daeron with his eyes rolled back, the whites exposed. Rhaella was next to him playing with her daggers. The former queen bit her lip. It was a common sight now, to have one child warg as the other protects their body. She wasn’t thrilled with this change, but knew that she can do nothing to stop them. She didn’t want to stop them, not really. She wanted her children to have every advantage against their enemies.

Daenerys sat on a bench nearby. Rhaella smiled at her mother, but immediately returned her attention back to her knives, letting them dip and twirl around her fingers. Occasionally she’ll bring one to flames before extinguishing them again. Daenerys was quite proud of her warrior daughter, wishing she’d learned to fight. 

Time passed before Daeron returned to his body. Rhaella immediately brought her attention to full focus as her brother shuddered as he returned. “Did you find him?” she asked.

Daenerys wondered who him was. Her heart went cold at the thought of them looking for their father, for Jon.

“Yes,” Daeron answered. “We can’t outrun him, Rhae. He’s too powerful.”

Rhaella nodded.

Daenerys asked, “Who?”

Her children exchanged looks. They had changed since Arya Stark had visited Volantis’ shores. They seemed to know about the danger Daenerys always tried to protect them from. They turned secretive and suspicious. Even from her.

Daeron answered, “The King of Westeros knows we exist, knows we’re here.”

Daenerys lept to her feet, calling for Drogon. “Arya Stark.”

“No,” Rhaella took her mother’s arms, calming her. “She didn’t know who we were, if she had, she might have killed us.”

“She certainly would have killed you if she knew you were here,” Daeron added.

Daenerys still didn’t like it. “We’ll run. Drogon can take us…”

Daeron interrupted her. “We can’t run. He’ll always find us. He’ll send assassins for us. We are dragons. We don’t run.” Her son stood, looking out to the city he’d always known as home. “I hate Volantis and it’s slaver’s marks. I hate it.” He took a deep breath and turned to his sister and mother. “It’s time to announce ourselves to the world and gather power.” He looked to his mother. “It’s time to live up to your example, mother. We will set the slaves of Volantis free.”

Rhaella jumped up. “We should marry first.” This surprised Daeron as much as Daenerys. “I’m the elder and you the male, I don’t want anyone trying to claim one of us over the other. We will do this together.”

Daeron nodded and moved to kiss his sister. “Together,” he agreed. He took a step back when he saw Daenerys. “It may be best to wait on children until after we finish this.”

Rhaella laughed. “Nonsense. I will ride my dragon as often I can. If the Lord of Light blesses us, then it is his will.”

Daeron blushed. “Rhae, not in front of our mother.”

Daenerys smiled, a rare thing these days. Rhaella reached out to her mother. “Volantis is ruled by three, we need our third.”

Daenerys immediately felt the panic take hold. She was so afraid of what she had done, at the moment of her triumph. “No, the power…” She cut herself off and restarted. “Power is corrupting, my children. I could not handle it, and I will be sure that you stay far from the madness that plagues our family.”

Rhaella stepped closer, lightly touching her mother. “You cannot live in the past. You are the Breaker of Chains, and we will need Drogon.”

Daeron confirmed his sister’s words. “We need to destroy the Three-Eyed Raven. He manufactured your downfall. Perhaps not intentionally, but he did it.” Her son’s violet eyes met hers. “He watches us now. We must stop him, and we will start with Volantis.”

A raven crowed in the distance and Rhaella took it out with an arrow. Daeron said, “He will fail against us, and he’s just beginning to realize that. He didn’t fall to Ice, but he will be destroyed by Fire.”

Daenerys was still afraid. She could not protect her children if the world knew them. She wanted them to stay safe. Rhaella reassured her, “If we look back, we are lost. It’s time for the dragons to rise again. Time to light the last fire.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s important for the slaves to take their own freedom for themselves. You can’t force any of them. Preach to them as they worship. In Volantis, out of every 5 men, 4 are slaves. Use those numbers.” That was the advice Daenerys gave her children. She thought they might follow it, as she was the Breaker of Chains, she had done this before.

But Daeron had his clever plans and his sister-wife trusted his judgement. He wanted glory. He wanted to announce the return of the Targaryens with all the fanfare he could muster. Daenerys watched her children make mistakes, knowing that failure was a better teacher than a mother’s words. When they first offered an end to slavery peacefully, the masters laughed at her children. “Why would we listen to Westerosi? Everyone knows that backwards country is populated with nothing but barbarians and savages. They sew animals on banners and think that elevates their mud huts to palaces.”

“We are not Westerosi. We are Targaryens. Blood of the Old Valyria, more pure than your own.”

The masters continued to bluster, but they must have feared her children as the assassins came that night. Rhaella slit the faceless man’s throat before he could kill her or her husband-brother. Then came her children’s attack. They selected 10 trusted Fiery Hand guards as they warged into wild elephants, who caused chaos in the rich sections of Volantis.

The back and forth attacks didn’t take long to escalate into all out war.

Daenerys attempted to stay clear of all of it, having enough of war for one lifetime, but when the masters captured Daeron, threatening him to force Rhaella’s surrender, Daenerys climbed aboard Drogon and flew to palace where he was being held. With her dragon at her back, she challenged the masters; the Breaker of Chains born again.

They attempted to kill her son before her eyes, but Drogon was just as protective of his brother as Daenerys was of her son. Dragonfire consumed the masters and the slaves worshiped the Targaryens as the Lightbringers. The followers of the Lord of the Light had always been the most prominent religion in Volantis, but by the time the city became truly free, it was almost the only religion.

Slavers fled and Targaryens followed. Daenerys had conquered Slavers’ Bay and made it Dragons’ Bay. Her children began to conquer the Free Cities and make them truly free. Daenerys revisits the places of her youth, staying in the Great Pyramid of Meereen and seeing that the men and women there still loved her. She wondered if they ever knew what she did in Westeros, or if they did, didn’t care.

Braavos funded her children, hating slavery as well and eager to see dragonfire force the end of the practice. Daenerys supported her children on dragonback, but Rhaella and Daeron had talents of their own. Rhaella was known as the “Little Dragon” as deadly as her brother Drogon, just smaller. Her daggers cut down anyone before and she learned to light them aflame, making her look like she danced with fire as she fought.

Daeron found a Valyrian sword in Pentos, picking up from among the ashes of dragonfire. It suited a Targaryen, as it had a black hilt with an encrusted ruby. He named it “Slavers’ Bane.” It became famous as her children’s reputations grew. Daenerys had seen this climb before, and though she was proud of her children, she worried they would follow her path too closely.

In the moments of quiet between battles, Rhaella and Daeron spoke about Westeros.

 

* * *

 

It was during a trip to Braavos that Daenerys learned the fate of her precious Unsullied. She immediately set off for Naath. Her children followed on their navy, but Daenerys got their within a day upon Drogon’s back.

The beaches were as beautiful as Missandei had described. Daenerys climbed off of her dragon and bent down to touch the white sand.

“Mysa,” Daenerys look up and saw her old commander. The most loyal man ever to serve her and tears filled her eyes.

“Grey Worm.” She stood and held out her arms for an embrace. He kneels before her instead, the warriors behind him, Unsullied and people of Naath alike, followed him.

She walked over and gently taking his arm and forcing him back to his feet. She hugged him as she said, “I am no longer a queen, and you don’t bow to me, old friend.”

Grey Worm nodded, but Daenerys could tell he didn’t believe her. She looked to beaches again, so pure and untouched, nearly perfect. She thought of Missandei, a woman too good for this horrible world. “I still miss her, sometimes.”

“Me too,” Grey Worm agreed, there was no emotion in his voice, but Daenerys noticed the twitch in his lip. It was near tears for her former commander.

“Missandei told me of the butterflies, can you take me to them?”

He nodded and escorted her to the gardens. They remembered Missandei and caught up on where they had been and what they had been doing.

Grey Worm looked to her chest when she mentioned the scar she now carried and he growled, “I should have killed him for you. Him and that dwarf.”

Daenerys heard the anger, the anger she had since let go of, but lived on in her children. She touched her friend’s arm. “You were the only loyal man I ever really knew, Grey Worm. I could never ask more from you.”

“He swore to never take a wife or father children.” He said, as if reassuring himself that Jon Snow had been punished.

Daenerys looked to sea, where her children with the former king were coming. “Another broken oath from Jon Snow. If my own children weren’t bastards, I might believe all that nonsense about their wicked blood.” And she supposed, if the Bastard of Winterfell had actually been a bastard.

Grey Worm looked to her, waiting for her explanation.

“I was pregnant when I was brought back, my children were brought back with me. They’ll be here in a few weeks.”

“I never should have let him near you, no one. You should have told me of the children. No one would have dared hurt you.”

Daenerys watched the butterflies and their delicate wings for the moment. So beautiful, but so easy to destroy. “I didn’t know. The past is in the past, Grey Worm.” A blue-winged bug landed on her finger. “None of that matters now.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t want to rule Westeros, I want to destroy it,” Rhaella said, her eyes glaring at the map before them. The Unsullied and Fiery Hand around her, tapped on the floor in agreement.

Daenerys said, “Westeros is full of innocent people. They don’t deserve your wrath. You must temper yourselves.” Daenerys was struck by how much she sounded like Tyrion once did. If the Lord of Light was true, he had a warped sense of humor.

Daeron, who’d kept mostly silent, sitting with his fingers templed, said, “Westeros is not our enemy. The Raven is.” He stood and pointed to a spot on the map. “The Raven is in King’s Landing. It must burn. He must be destroyed, no matter the cost.” His eyes connected with his mother’s and she understood what he was asking.

“No, I will not do that again.” Daenerys took a step back.

“Mother, it will save more in the long run. You keep talking about your mistakes and not repeating them. Your biggest mistake in the Westeros war was that you didn’t eliminate the threat of Cersei Lannister immediately.”

Daenerys said nothing, but she turned away. She had never wanted to return to Westeros. She just wanted to live in peace with her children. She hadn’t asked for any of this. Daeron touched her arm, making her jump in surprise, “We will never be safe while that king lives. We must do this.”

Daenerys looked to both her children. She clutched at her son’s upper arm. “I know. But you’ll do it without me. They hate and fear me in Westeros. If I come with you, you’ll only ever be the Mad Queen’s children. I won’t pass on such a stain. I know what it is to live under such a cloud.”

Daeron took a step back and Rhaella frowned. “Neither of us can ride Drogon, only you can.”

“Your brother will protect you and listen to your commands.” Daenerys wrapped her arms around herself.

She saw her children grow angry at her for denying them, as she had mostly indulged them before. Daenerys could live with their hate. She knew it was only temporary. The war council ended, but the planning would continue. Rhaella and Daeron Targaryen were the children of Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, they were determined and stubborn. They would not back down from a fight.

Daenerys wondered if Westeros knew what was coming for them.


	2. Westeros

****Tyrion had heard the rumors of course. They didn’t have a Master of Whispers, because what was the point when the king was the Three-Eyed Raven, but he’d heard from his spy network of traders that the Targaryens were back and freeing the slaves of Essos. He’d dismissed it of course. They were just freedom fighters with Valyrian blood, using the queen’s name to further their cause.

Yes, some people talked about the dragon and the queen burning parts of Volantis when her son was captured, but he’d thought it more likely that it was an exaggerated story than the truth.

But now his king was telling him that the Targaryens were real and they were coming to Westeros. It was a bit much to take in. Tyrion narrowed his eyes as he looked to Bran, “They can’t be Targaryens. The Targaryens are all dead.”

“Jon died and rose again. Daenerys died and rose again. Their children did the same. The Targaryens are dead, but they aren’t staying dead.” He said it with his usual lack of emotion, but he treated this more like a curious fact rather than an actual worry.

Tyrion finished his wine, immediately pouring himself another glass. This was why he hated magic and the dead coming back to life. He thought logically, planned for things he could understand. People who were dead suddenly not being dead, how was a person supposed to plan for that? He continued his drinking.

He thought of the Dragon Queen, which he’d tried not to do in the years since her passing. He’d always wondered how she could have fooled him, how he could only see the best in her whereas Varys and Sansa had seen the madness there. Was it her beauty? He had loved her. Perhaps his feelings had blinded him.

But a deeper part of him didn’t think that was true.

He put his thoughts aside and repeated, “Daenerys Targaryen has been dead twenty years. She had no living children.”

“No,” Bran said in his emotionless way. “She was brought back along with her children.”

Tyrion’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“They are seperating soon. I cannot follow her children. They are wargs. They know when I’m there. They just change skins to where I can’t follow. I cannot beat them. They know this. They believe they will succeed where the Night King failed.”

Bran’s powers had helped them put down many a rebellion in the past. A chill took Tyrion, angry Targaryens immune to the Three-Eyed Raven’s powers were not an enemy he was eager to meet. Especially, if Bran’s words were true, that they were a greater threat than the Army of the Dead had been.

Tyrion continued to drink.

A raven sat perched on the chair of the king, as one always did. Tyrion had grown used to the sight of ravens everywhere, but the stench of their shit was annoying. The servants cleaned as best they could, but he was constantly surrounded by bird shit. He thought about what they might do. “If they are the mad queen’s children we could use that against them, but if they are pretenders it would be better not to give them any legitimacy.” Tyrion swirled the wine in his glass as he thought.

He knew the king would be no help. Whatever sat in the place of Bran Stark wasn’t much for strategy. Good for information, but most of the ruling fell to Tyrion. Tyrion had always thought he would enjoy that, he always thought it was what he wanted. But the weight of the crown was heavier than he imagined it would be.

And as far as the people of Westeros were concerned, he was still the Imp, still the demon monkey who would see them all in their graves, and then dance upon them.

Nevermind the truth.

A hawk’s screech interrupted Tyrion’s thoughts. He barely had time to process what he’d heard when the large bird dived in through the window, going straight for the raven by the king’s head. Tyrion called out for the guards, but the hawk ignored Bran, instead ripping apart the raven, scattering the black feathers everywhere.

Tyrion looked to the king to ask what that was about, but the king was gone, his eyes rolled back and the whites now showing. Tyrion heard the ravens coming and thought about leaving the room, but he was too terrified and curious to move.

A dozen ravens flew in from all different windows, busting through glass at some points. Tyrion frowned at the colored glass now littering the floor, as it wouldn’t be cheap to repair. But the ravens surrounded the hawk quickly, pecking at the much larger bird.

But the hawk didn’t back down, it lashed out with talon and beak, killing several more ravens. Still, the larger bird was overwhelmed by black as more ravens continued to pour in, until Tyrion could barely see it.

The hawk gave one loud, final screech before bursting into flames, taking out several ravens with his death.

The king returned and the birds scattered again, leaving behind only the messes of dead birds, scattered feathers, and charred remains. Tyrion couldn’t stand the smell of burnt flesh, not since that day in King’s Landing in what once felt like a lifetime ago.

Today though it felt like it happened yesterday, like the Dragon Queen had always remained, just waiting for her revenge. Letting Westeros starve first during the longest winter in memory that hadn’t ended as so many had hoped with the defeat of the Night King. Letting the constant rebellions and invasions by her former allies happen until Tyrion finally negotiated a peace, which included an independent Dorne and Iron Islands, weakening the now Five Kingdoms. Letting the remaining high lords grumble and plot, and in Bronn’s case, steal from the crown. Letting them fall into a false sense of security as spring returned after the long winter finally ended.

Tyrion was horrified to think that the Targaryens have returned, ready for revenge, but the king didn’t react. He stared at the dead bird that had been at his head, looking at it as though it were an interesting piece of literature rather than remains of a once living body. The king said, “Targaryens, never subtle, are they?” He looked to the window where the hawk flew in. “They are coming for us. They are fire made flesh, and we must destroy them before they destroy us.” 

Tyrion, unsuited for magical fights, decided that his best course of action was to get drunker than he’d ever been. He poured himself more wine.

 

* * *

 

Bran watched the twins as they landed at Dragonstone. The man acted much as his mother had, kneeling on the sand, his hand softly caressing land of his ancestors.

The woman kept her hands on her daggers, staying alert for any danger.

Bran’s attention went to the soldiers and servants that followed the Targaryens. Before they came to Westeros, the Targaryens had stopped in Braavos. Partly for more loan money, but also to stop at the House of Black and White. They’d had a Faceless Man trying to kill them and had decided they needed to they needed to cancel that contract before doing anything else. Bran hadn’t been able to follow them inside, whatever god those people worshiped gave them enough magic to keep the Three-Eyed Raven away.

He’d watched as three people left the temple, the Targaryens and a non-descript man following them. Bran knew if they’d managed to get a Faceless man on their side, he would be in trouble. In theory he would be able to see the assassin change faces, but he didn’t know who it was, as they’d kept their face hidden walking out of the temple. Going through the histories of every Targaryen follower would take too much time.

Bran watched the Targaryens instead, hoping that they would make mistakes he could capitalize on. If their leaders were gone, the armies and assassins wouldn’t matter.

Neither would the dragon. Drogon had returned with his brother and sister, flying over Dragonstone once more. He was bigger now. His hide wouldn’t be pieced by the scorpions that had taken out his brothers. They would need to hit him in the eye, like Meraxes. Bran had watched that dragon get taken out, had seen what had happened to the queen and what had made Aegon the Conqueror yield. It would be hard to replicate.

Though not impossible.

If they could capture one Targaryen, the other would listen. They loved each other, both as siblings and lovers. Their strong bond was their great strength, but it could be a weakness. If they took Rhaella, Daeron would listen; if they captured Daeron, Rhaella would stand down.

What Bran feared from that plan was the wrath of the mother. Drogon was sure to fetch his mother if either of his siblings were in danger.

He’d watched Daenerys Targaryen grief and repent over what had happened in Westeros. He’d seen her guilt, watched her perform good deeds, caring for the slaves of Volantis, in the Red Temple to make up for her terrible deeds in Westeros. He’d watched her turn from revenge and decide that Westeros was right to call her monster. He’d watched her punish herself by isolating herself from the world, hardening her heart so she would love no one outside of her family ever again. She would not conquer or pay back Westeros for its cruelty to her, but she might try to protect her children from it.

Bran watched. Past and present, he watched it all. He watched the Targaryens rise and fall in turns, their house would burn down only to rise again from its ashes.

They truly were dragons. Mostly extinct, feared and hunted, but even at their weakest, powerful and awe-inspiring.

Bran watched, knowing if he could beat the Targaryens, no one else would ever truly threaten him again.

 

* * *

 

Tyrion was drinking too much. He couldn’t help it. First, the ravens had come, sent out across all of Westeros, announcing the return of the Targaryens, who insisted they weren’t here to conquer their old homeland. No, they were here to free it from the tyranny of the Three-Eyed Raven; they were here to liberate, not conquer.

Tyrion remembered too well what Targaryen liberation meant. He’d expected the soldiers to come next, but the Targaryens were smarter than that. They sent priests instead. Priests who spoke to the smallfolk, scaring them with tales of the Three-Eyed Raven and his ability to spy on them. He’d snuck out of King’s Landing to listen to one talk, a beautiful red priestess who lectured and warned. “This king who spies on you, sees into your souls and knows your thoughts. This king who deprives you of your most basic freedom. This king and his demon monkey advisor, his weak council who let two kingdoms slip through their fingers. He must be stopped. Only we can destroy him for you. Only the Targaryens can save you.”

Tyrion had seen the effect the words had had on the crowd. He’d been surprised by their hatred though now he wasn’t sure why. Disguising his voice, Tyrion had appealed to reason reminding them all, “The Targaryens are cruel, not heroic. The mad king and his daughter enjoyed burning people alive.”

The red priestess replied, “Fire is the best death. It cleanses the soul. If the Targaryens are monsters, then they are necessary ones. Men cannot beat the Three-Eyed Raven. They’ve tried and failed here in Westeros for 20 years. He is the real monster. You need the dragons to save you -- through Fire and Blood. Just as they did against the Night King and his undead army.”

Tyrion thought of objecting to that as well, but no one remembered Arya Stark anymore. Dragons were remembered, but not small women who’d left Westeros so long ago. He snuck back into King’s Landing, more frightened than ever of these Targaryens and their followers.

Unlike their mother against his sister, the Dragon Queen’s children were winning the war of propaganda. The honor and heroics of the Starks had dimmed over the years, as the North became more isolated and their warriors disappeared. Bran and Sansa were good rulers, but neither fought their own battles. There weren’t many songs about them, as opposed to many songs about the Targaryens and their daring and loves and tragedies.

More songs were being spread about these new ones. Tyrion had heard a few of the bards in the streets singing them. One of the Flea Bottom singers in particular was growing quite popular. Tyrion had gone to see her one day. An unremarkable girl with mousy brown hair covered in foul-smelling rags, but her voice was as good as he’d heard Rhaegar Targaryen’s had been.

It didn’t take long for the rebellions to start. They broke out everywhere at once. There was no way to put them all down. Especially with the dragon near their doorstep, Tyrion didn’t dare send too many armies away. The last burning of King’s Landing still haunted him. The Mad Queen was bad, but she had heeded his words for a time before breaking.

What would her children do without anyone checking their worst impulses? They weren’t just Aegon the Conqueror reborn, they had Jaehaerys’ wisdom to start their fight with propaganda and were religious fanatics like Baelor the Blessed. They were gaining support like wildfire. Anyone who’d had trouble with him or the king in the last 20 years flocked to the Targaryen banners. It wasn’t an insignificant number.

The hardest blows were Dorne and Storm’s End declaring for the Targaryens. Tyrion knew the Reach would stay out of the conflict until a winner emerged. The other lands would probably stay loyal to the crown, as there were enough connections to the Starks in the Vale and Riverlands.

Bran could watch the armies and the priests, but there was little he could do. Even his powers had limits and he couldn’t be everywhere at once. The one place he should always be at was with the Targaryens who knew how to avoid his gaze.

Tyrion did his best to combat their message, but he couldn’t remind the smallfolk about the madness of these pretenders without confirming them as Targaryens. He tried to tap into the xenophobia of them as foreign invaders, but it seemed that many were sick of their homegrown heroes. Enough time had passed that the Targaryens were remembered fondly, were connected with the warmth of springs and summer rather than the cruel winter of the Stark reign.

It was bullshit of course. Targaryens couldn’t hold back winters, and the long summer had happened during Robert Baratheon’s reign. But facts didn’t always matter when it came to great game. As Tyrion had once claimed, the person with the best story won, but the story didn’t need to be true.

It would have helped if Bran could have been called one of the great heroes of the Great War, but the ones who did the most in that fight were gone: away, exiled or dead. Tyrion tried to paint him as one anyway, but no one seemed to believe that the king did anything in that conflict.

Tyrion was smart enough to know they needed help and fast.

He needed to get a message to Sansa. They needed their own Targaryen hero back.

 

* * *

 

Jon Snow had received word that Winter had ended a few months ago. It had been the longest Winter in living memory, 20 years long. Not that it mattered beyond the Wall; it was always cold here. Still, he appreciated that even after all this time Sansa bothered sending him messages.

He never replied. He loved his sister, but he couldn’t forgive her. She had destroyed his life. If Tyrion had never known who he was, Daenerys wouldn’t have felt so threatened by his claim. Those weeks continued to haunt him, how he should have acted, what he could have done differently. How he might have been happy. How Daenerys might have lived.

Ygritte’s face had faded over time. He could barely remember anything except her red hair, but Daenerys would never cease haunting him. He could recall everything about her as if he’d seen her yesterday. Jon thought he deserved it. He deserved to suffer for what he’d done to her, but he had hoped the pain would lessen at some point.

It never did.

Life beyond the Wall was fine. He wasn’t exactly happy, but the only time he’d ever been happy ended so badly he never wanted to feel that way again. He did love the freedom and the way of life kept by the Free Folk, which didn’t include all the duty and politics and rules, he’d chafed against in his former life. Jon kept to his vows of celibacy, but less out of his duty and promise than to a lack of interest. Love never worked out for him and he had no desire for these wildling women who kept trying to steal him.

Daenerys broke him. Love destroyed him. Now he lived, but he wasn’t alive.

His days were mostly spent resolving conflicts between the different tribes of Free Folk and helping them build settlements. They never stayed any place for long, which Jon might have hated before, but it suited him now. He couldn’t stand to sit still as it allowed him time to think. His thoughts were always dark and full of terrors. He wanted the distractions.

They looked for any traces of the Night King and his army. Jon wanted to be sure the threat was gone forever. Whenever they found something with the symbol the Army of the Dead used, they burned the entire place. The practice always made Jon wish Drogon might return to make the task easier.

But he knew the dragon wouldn’t obey his commands, last Targaryen or not; the beast would be more likely to avenge his mother’s death. Jon often longed for that too though. Death. It would be sweet to rest, to perhaps join the woman he’d lost. The father and brother he’d loved. The father and mother he’d never known. It might be better than living.

Jon kept going though, out of determination more than anything. His life’s work would be destroying the Night King and the Army of the Dead and he wouldn’t rest until he had combed every inch of the true north. He returned to the Watch from time to time to oversee the rebuilding of the Wall. The 1,000th Lord Commander, a Rivers, was no Bran the Builder, but he was doing his job well enough. Jon never stayed at Castle Black long, it was too haunted by ghosts for him to sleep their comfortably. And the Lord Commander didn’t seem to be in any hurry to punish him for leaving, not with the Free Folk at Jon’s back.

“King Crow,” someone called to him. Jon had stopped trying to correct the title years ago. He turned to see a boy running to him, a parchment in his hand. Jon was surprised to receive another message from Sansa so soon, he held out his hand and the boy placed the scroll in it. Jon looked at the direwolf seal and felt a longing for home. Gods, some days he missed Winterfell desperately. He broke the seal and read.

He remembered when he’d been at Dragonstone, eyeing each message with suspicion, as he knew the Queen’s men had certainly read every single one. That wasn’t a worry with the illiterate Free Folk, and Jon loved them for their lack of games.

Jon had tried once to teach the Free Folk how to read, but none had been interested. Tormund had finally persuaded him to give up on the task. He missed the big guy too. Tormund had died years ago, his crazy antics finally catching up to him. While he’d made friends with other Free Folk, to Jon losing Tormund had been like losing the only real friend he had left. After all, everyone else saw him as King Crow, the man who escaped death, someone to be worshiped as a god. Tormund had been the only one willing to tease him. He missed that camarderie. It was lonely being a leader.

He still had Ghost, but Ghost had found his own pack and formed a family of his own. Jon still saw him regularly, but never for long as Ghost was always ready to get back to his pack. Jon couldn’t blame the direwolf. It just left him lonely.

Jon read Sansa’s message, but couldn’t quite believe any of it. Tyrion had informed her that Targaryens have returned to Dragonstone. Which made no sense, as he was the last of that house. He’d sired no bastards, he was sure of that. They must have been pretenders, no matter what Bran saw in his visions.

Along with Sansa’s message was an official pardon from Tyrion who wanted him to come south to King’s Landing. It mentioned that Westeros needed its heroes again.

Was that what Jon was? A hero? He didn’t think he had ever been a hero.

Jon still regretted the last favor he did for Tyrion, and he wasn’t fool enough to grant another one.

 

* * *

 

Tyrion climbed the stone stairs up the Dragon gate of King’s Landing. He was growing too old for this, his short legs had never liked these steps, and his age was making his knees feel pain more than it had in the past. The gold cloaks waited patiently for him, but Tyrion could sense their frustration. He wished he could care, but age had given him the wisdom of Olenna Tyrell, he no longer suffered fools as well as he might have.

When he finally got to the top of the gate, he followed the directions and took a place overlooking the walls but still covered from arrows.

Out of range, there stood a man, speaking to a gathered crowd. Tyrion couldn’t see the man well, so he brought out an invention of his own design, a pair of looking glasses that allowed things far away to be seen as though they were close. He looked through it to see the man who was now his greatest enemy.

The first thing Tyrion thought was that the man certainly looked the part of a Targaryen. Silver hair, violet eyes and almost unnaturally beautiful. The sister, also beautiful but not so perfectly Targaryen, sat in the corner, listening but more focused on the walls of King’s Landing and their archers than the crowd around them.

Tyrion couldn’t really make out the king’s words, but he seemed to be delivering them well. Each face he gazed on in the crowd seemed enraptured by this king. If he wasn’t a Targaryen, Tyrion thought bitterly, he was a fine fire priest. The man began to walk among his people and Tyrion wondered what was in range of the walls, as the king was coming closer now.

He walked over to the nearest archer to ask. He didn’t know precisely, so Tyrion tracked down the commander. “300 yards,” he replied confidently.

Tyrion pointed at the so-called Targaryen. “Is he in range now?”

The commander explained slowly, as though Tyrion was slow or a child, “No, and we can’t risk sending arrows at him if they won’t kill him. It’ll just scare him away.”

“But he’s closer now.” The Hand looked down and saw the man was even closer to the walls now. He held out his looking glasses. “Look.”

The commander sneered at Tyrion’s invention. “I know more about combat than you do.”

Tyrion was tempted to give the man his now extensive background in warfare, but resisted. He calmed himself down with a deep breath and then said, “The man keeps walking closer, just look. I think one good bolt might take him out.”

The commander still looked disgusted at Tyrion’s insistence, but he looked out. After a long moment, the commander sent for an archer named Bullboy. Upon seeing him, Tyrion had no idea how the lad had wound up with that nickname as he was a slight fellow. The commander pointed to the Targaryen, “Can you hit him?”

The boy looked out and nodded. So the commander gave the order. Tyrion stepped back, wondering if he should have been the one to give the command, but then there was no reason to antagonize one of his own commanders. He watched the Targaryen through his looking glasses.

The archer had been so quiet, Tyrion jumped at the sight of the burst of blood and the arrow through the king’s neck. The cry of surprise and horror could be heard from the walls, and Tyrion repressed a sigh of relief. That had been much easier than he feared it would be. The red priests and priestesses flooded around their king. The queen stayed back, but peered at the walls, as though looking for the man who killed her brother.

Tyrion lowered the glasses and turned to join in the congratulations. He held out a hand for the boy, who was grinning and took it without thinking. “Good job, lad.”

“Thanks Sir...Lord Hand.”

It wasn’t the proper title, but Tyrion didn’t care. The accent of lad marked him as some country boy. He probably spent most of his youth hunting rabbits, hence his superior marksmanship. Tyrion glanced down to see the priests and priestesses praying over the body of the king. The Targaryens would have been better served to have maesters in their retinue instead of holy people.

He turned his attention back to the hero of the hour, wondering how he might reward the lad. Curious, Tyrion asked, “Why do they call you Bullboy?”

Bullboy shrugged. “Back on the farm, I used to castrate the bulls.”

Tyrion grimaced. He opened his mouth again, but the words were interrupted.

“Gods, look!” One of the archers behind them yelled, pointing down to where the king’s body had been.

The king was standing again. He waved away the priests trying to help him to his feet. He took a moment and then turned to face the walls. Tyrion knew it was impossible, but it felt as if though he was looking straight at him as he yelled in a clear voice. “I am Daeron Targaryen, third in his name, and the slavers’ bane. I was born dead. Arrows are naught but bee stings to me. Swords and daggers are pinpricks. And fire cannot kill a dragon. Let the Three-Eyed Raven watch me; he won’t stop me. My war is with him. If you don’t stand by him, no harm will come to you.” With that, the king walked away, his followers trailing him.

It was on purpose, Tyrion realized with a dull horror. The king had been baiting them so that he could show off. The commander snapped out of his surprise and ordered his men to loose arrows, but most of them were still too stunned to obey.

Masterful, Tyrion admired even as he cursed his enemy. He looked at the faces of his own men, saw the doubts there, saw them thinking about their futures and their loyalties.

Even Bullboy.

Damn this false dragon, Tyrion thought. Targaryen exceptionalism had been the dragon lords’ propaganda for centuries, but none of them had ever come back from the dead.

Except Daenerys Stormborn and Jon Snow, he realized. But neither of those took place outside of King’s Landing. They could be dismissed as rumors. This could not be dismissed so easily. And that fucking king knew it.

They were well and truly fucked, Tyrion thought. He retreated back to his plans and his wine.

 

* * *

 

“What if we kidnapped the queen? If we can hold one of them hostage to negotiate with the other. They don’t seem mad.” They were far too calculating, Tyrion thought.

“The king would be better, he’s the less skilled fighter,” Bran said. “Though I’m not sure how much affection they hold for each other. They haven’t touched one another since beginning their Westeros campaign.” The king looked bored.

He always looked bored. Tyrion was fucking sick of it. He was sick of this ruler who felt nothing. Who knew everything but how to be truly useful. He could see everything, yet didn’t notice how the people were turning against him. It made Tyrion long for the mad rulers he’d served in the past. At least with them there was some excitement.

The gold cloaks ranks had been halved after that incident with the king. Tyrion had compensated the lower numbers with sellswords, but that would only last as long as they didn’t figure out that the crown was broke.

He felt like he was balancing on a pile of shit over a raging inferno of fire. There was no way to save any of this. Tyrion finished his wine, and a servant filled the cup without his asking. He’d ordered the servant to do this, follow him around and make sure his cup was never empty.

If he was going to die, he damn well wasn’t going to die sober. The Targaryen army had begun surrounding the city. So far they hadn’t done anything, but Tyrion knew what was coming.

He’d seen that fucking dragon burn the city to the ground once before; he didn’t intend to watch it happen again. They had scorpions mounted, just in case of a lucky shot through the eye. But Tyrion wasn’t hopeful.

He sometimes entertained thoughts of leaving Bran and joining the Targaryens, but he knew it was unlikely that the little dragons would show him any mercy. So he was attached to his chosen king to the bitter end.

Bran had slipped back into his ravens, Tyrion noticed. He wondered where the rest of the council was, before remembering that most had gone to “see to their families.” Cowards, Tyrion thought bitterly.

He wondered what Tywin Lannister would think of Tyrion having no family to “see to.” All that work to restore the Lannister name, and his line would end with his dwarf. It had a certain cruel poetry that quite pleased Tyrion. Some cousin was his heir whose name he didn’t remember, one of Kevan’s kids, maybe? Had any of them lived? Or was it one of Gemma’s boys? Tyrion couldn’t remember with the wine clogging his brain.

Bran returned and said without preamble, “He’s coming. He’s planning to warg his way in. Give the order to kill all the animals.”

Tyrion had been holding back such an order, as the king had thought they should do it before the Targaryens landed. It wouldn’t be a popular order, Tyrion knew. Forcing families to put down their dogs and cats. And if rats had been easy to kill, there wouldn’t be so many in the city.

But the hand wiped the shit his king gave him. What else could he do?

 

* * *

 

Tyrion cursed himself for ever wishing that he might serve another mad monarch. The next step for the Three-Eyed Raven after eliminating the animals was to take out his enemies within the walls. Public executions were a daily occurrence now.

And still the Targaryens sat outside the walls, waiting. For what, Tyrion didn’t know. He’d planned for them to come at them with Fire and Blood. He didn’t know what kept them back, they just waited with a patience Tyrion had never seen in any Targaryen.

Perhaps they really were pretenders.

For today’s executions, they round up the bards. These would happen in the throne room rather than public, as too many of these singers were too popular to arouse anything but riots from the common people. Tyrion drank. He hated what had become of this supposed different king. He hated how nothing changed. He had once dreamed of breaking the wheel, now he was the one most responsible for keeping it spinning.

The singers sang their treasonous songs, for the king’s pleasure it was said, but Bran the Broken didn’t pay any attention. Most of the singers were crying as they played and sang, right up until their heads were taken from their bodies.

Tyrion hated this. He knew it was necessary, but their true enemy were outside of King’s Landing.

He recognized the last singer, the one from Flea Bottom whose song Tyrion had enjoyed, even with its treachery. He’d paid her with two gold dragons, getting a smile that showed her missing teeth in return. She was forced to kneel in front of the throne, with the good lords and ladies watching. She switched to sitting and pulled out her harp from her bundle of rags that served as clothes.

She begins to sing in her beautiful, clear voice:

 _The world was saved from ice_  
_By fire and flame_  
_Paid the blood price  
_ _Of fire and flame_

 _The dragons come again_  
_Put a fever inside me_  
_Nothing cold remains  
_ _As it was meant to be_

 _Save us from a tyrant’s reign_  
_Save us from raven’s eyes_  
_Fire and flame_  
_The dragons come again_  
_Fire made flesh, destroy the spies  
_ _Fire and flame_

The executioner, impatient to end his day, readied his sword to strike the woman down. Her song changed, and she spoke in a new tongue.

Odd, Tyrion thought. Since when did poor girls from Flea Bottom know more than the Common Tongue?

As soon as thought crossed his mind, the harp caught fire. She flung it at the executioner’s face, and he screamed and doubled over in pain. With an easy grace, she picked up the man’s fallen sword, killing the nearest Kingsguard before he has a chance to unsheathe his sword.

She cut a bloody path through all of the guards. She was the far better fighter than any of them. Tyrion realized that this singer must be the Faceless Man whom they’d been looking for. He looked to the king, trying to figure out a way to get him to safety.

The king was warging and Tyrion was almost relieved. The crows would come.

Her bloody work done, the woman took off her bundle of rags. Then she removed her face.

She was beautiful. Tyrion could hear the approach of the birds, but the woman took out the daggers strapped to her sides. She began to climb the stairs as she said, “I am Rhaella Targaryen, First of Her Name. I liberated the Free Cities. I rose from the dead before my birth. And I will destroy the Three-Eyed Raven and the oldest enemies of men, the Children of the Forest.”

Before she could reach the king the windows burst and scores of ravens came to attack her. The woman raced up the final steps, her arms protecting her head as the ravens slashed and pecked at her. Tyrion could just barely make out the chant, but the daggers came alive with fire, killing several of the birds as she slashed it above her head.

The other dagger went straight into the king’s heart. He died quickly and his ravens departed as soon as his warging finished. The woman breathed hard, one dagger still in her hand. She put the fire out and then inspected her arms, which were covered in blood. As she turned around, Tyrion noticed her face bleed as well. She would probably have scars.

She didn’t seem to care. She sat next to the throne and then took up a familiar position, warging.

Tyrion thought about doing something when she was vulnerable, but there was no way he could pick up the heavy sword lying on the ground, and there’s no time to find a dagger before the queen was back again.

He had thought her a northerner beauty, but now Tyrion looked into violet eyes he remembered well.

Her eyes looked over him as well, landing on his pin. “Lord Tyrion Lannister, I presume?”

He nodded. “I am afraid I don’t recall of your titles.”

She snorted. “Mother said you were funny.”

Tyrion’s stomach knotted. Could it be true? Could these really be Daenerys Targaryen’s children? He glanced to the lords and ladies, cowering in the corner. He returned his attention to the so-called Targaryen. He cleared his suddenly dry throat and asked, “So your brother warging to get into the castle was just a distraction?”

“No, he was trying to warg his way in. It could have worked. But the best plan is three plans at once, independent of each other, one of which should work.”

“What was the third plan then?”

“Never you mind.”

The silence consumed them for awhile, but it made Tyrion uneasy. He was a talker. He needed reassurance that this woman, this queen, wasn’t about to burn him alive for betraying her mother. He said, “I only did what was best for the realm.”

They were the wrong words. He knew it as soon as they left his mouth. He saw Rhaella harden. “And what was best for the realm was for you to rule through a puppet king rather than serve a powerful ruler? Much like Varys.” Her violet eyes turned to him. “How convenient.”

“Powerful, is that what she told you?” Tyrion took a step towards her, feeling braver than he actually was. “Did she tell you about the burnt women and children? Did she tell you how she lost her mind like so many others in her family? Your family?”

“She wasn’t mad, you knew that or were you really so foolish as to follow a mad woman? She bore too much, alone, and it broke her. You were supposed to help her, not undermine her at every turn.”

“I did. I supported her completely.”

Violet eyes flashed as the queen swung her legs around to face Tyrion fully. Her blood was still dripping down. “Until it came to Cersei and Jaime.”

“They were my family. You might not know what it is to betray your family or the love of family, but…”

Rhaella interrupted. “Don’t ever speak to me of family.” She pointed to the still burning king. “Bran might have been a favorite uncle in another life. He might have snuck me sweets with a wink despite my mother forbidding them. I might have been a Stark as well as a Targaryen. But you chose Lannister. My father chose Stark. And my mother was left alone. The great families faced off, as they always do. The wheel forever turning, crushing everyone beneath it. You claimed to want to destroy the wheel, but you weren’t willing to pay the blood price for it. Nothing great ever happened without great cost. I will burn this land to the ground and rebuild it from scratch if I must, and that’s not madness, it’s a clear headed view of the situation.”

Tyrion fell silent.  

Soldiers storming in broke the silence and to Tyrion’s disappointment they weren’t his. They were led by another Rhaella. Tyrion realized this must be the real Faceless man. Rhaella stood, her energy apparently back, or her will to fake it anyway. She addressed her copy first, “You can stop being me now.”

The Faceless man shook the glamour away. And an unremarkable looking man now stood before them. Tyrion hated magic. It complicated everything.

Rhaella said, “Your debt is paid. The gift returned.” The man nodded and threw a coin in the woman’s direction. She caught it without comment. She paused for a moment, her closed fist coming to rest at her chin as she thought.

Tyrion watched her carefully, wishing he could read her better. He’d been able to read Daenerys fairly well for a time. The former Dragon Queen had always kept her mask on tight, but there were usually just enough cracks in it.

Rhaella put the coin away and went to Bran again, pulling the blade from the ash corpse. She stood for a moment, studying her work, before slashing the body’s throat with both daggers, causing the head to bounce down the stairs. She sheathed her daggers. Then she climbed down the stairs as she gave orders in a foreign tongue that made her soldiers line up the lords and ladies to one side of the room. Tyrion was forced with them.

She took a deep breath before facing the crowd. “You know who I am and what I stand for, but I don’t know you. I’m not sure what you believe in or how loyal you were to your king.” She looked down at the charred head. “My brother and I intend to rebuild Westeros, make it better for everyone. I know you are all powerful men and women, and change may frighten you. That’s fine. You will have the freedom to join your king.” She looked to one of her guards. “Give them time to make their choices in the dungeons.”

The soldiers began ushering them all out, but Rhaella pointed at Tyrion. “Not him.”

Tyrion wasn’t thrilled at being singled out, knowing it didn’t mean anything good for him. He desperately tried to think of a quip, but the wine and the danger were affecting his brain too much.

Rhaella spoke instead, looking out one of the shattered windows to look at King’s Landing. “You’ll have to forgive the speech, Lord Lannister. My brother is the prophet, the only performances I like to give are singing ones. He’s the fire and I’m the blood.” She held up her bloody arms as example.

Tyrion fed up with this Targaryen madness about destiny and breaking the wheel and all the nonsense he’d heard before, finally snapped and snarled, “You are as mad as your mother. She thought herself a tyrant killer as well.”

“Cersei Lannister wasn’t a tyrant? What a self-serving view of history you have.” The woman looked at him, confused.

“Cersei didn’t think of herself of some god-queen like you Targaryens at least. Never fell to such madness.”

“You think I believe all that?” The words stopped Tyrion’s mind cold. “Like I said, my brother’s the prophet. I see the value in religion, as the people of Westeros are always so desperate for their religious revitalizations.” She paused. “I’m just a young bastard girl whose mother lost everything to greedy men, twice. I want to see her smile again. She never smiles anymore.” The woman looked out again. “The people need to believe I’m something more, a dragon or a queen or a god. But I’m just a woman.”

Tyrion saw Rhaella and was again reminded so strongly of the mother. Not the Daenerys of King’s Landing, but the just woman in Meereen. Who was fierce but kind. Who protected slaves and the weak from monsters. Who saved everyone she could. The woman he’d so believed in before it all turned to shit.

Rhaella interrupted his thoughts, crashing his mood back down. “I’m not going to kill you, Lord Tyrion.” She looked to her soldiers, who had been guarding the doors. “Take his tongue and then let him rot in prison.”

Tyrion’s eyes widened and he began to beg. “No, please, I’ve done nothing to you. I don’t deserve it.”

She walked over and put a finger on his Hand pin. “My mother made this for you, especially for you. Because she choose you, believed in you, and you failed her. Your chosen king didn’t even bother to forge you a new pin.” She took her hand away. “You’re right. You don’t deserve death, for you’ve done nothing to me. It’s too kind a punishment for the man who betrayed my mother besides.” She looked to her brother who entered the room now. “But you’ve talked your way out of many prisons, Lord Lannister. I’d be a fool to leave you with your most powerful weapon. Just as I would take away a warrior’s blade. ”

The soldiers began to prepare to carry out the sentence and Tyrion focused on Daeron. He turned his begging to him, hoping the man’s piety might help, but the Targaryen merely lifted an eyebrow to his sister. “Just his tongue? I hear dwarf cocks fetch a pretty price in Essos.”

Rhaella rolled her eyes as she held out her arm to her brother, who took it. “You men and your cocks.”

Daeron pulled his wife to him. They held each other closely and tightly as though they hadn’t done so in months. “You women seem to like our cocks just fine.” They smiled, before Daeron groaned, “I’ve missed you.” They kissed.

When they pulled apart, he asked, “Time to go north?”

“Yes, but let’s take a roundabout way. Tour all of the kingdoms, like a progress of old. Let the people see that the dragons have returned.”

Tyrion could barely hear the conversation through the blistering pain. In the distance, Drogon roared.

 

* * *

 

Jon dreaded every message sent to him now. He tried to focus on his mission, his purpose in finishing the task of wiping out every trace of the Night King and the Army of the Dead from the continent, but news of these “dragons” kept distracting him. He almost wished they would just stop coming.

But then he would be stuck wondering what had happened to the senders.

Tyrion had wrote him about his own fate under the children. Jon felt bad for the man, but he supposed it was better than death. Sansa and Sam were scared, though Sam had clearly followed the rest of the Reach and bent the knee, despite not saying it directly.

Jon didn’t blame him. Sam had always been a bit of a coward, but being that way had made him the happiest (and probably the most long living) of them all.

These “dragons” said they weren’t here to conquer, they were only here to right the wrongs done to their family. Only here to end the tyranny of the Three-Eyed Raven and build a better Westeros.

They were conquering anyway. The smallfolk missed the stability of the Targaryens, as it has been war and raids between the kingdoms since the mad queen’s death. The people longed for a powerful monarch, they were ready for a revolutionary in a way they weren’t when Daenerys came. They wanted the Targaryens to reform Westeros again, even if these two can’t possibly be who they say they are. They have a dragon, they have fire warriors, and Unsullied following them. They may not be Targaryens, but they embodied them.

Which did make Jon wonder, who were these so-called children of fire?

They clearly possessed powerful magic, as they could set their blades alight with words. They warged into the beasts they surrounded themselves with, which was apparently how they had avoided the many eyes of the ravens. Wargs could not chase wargs easily.

The common people thought these Targaryens were sent from the gods to rescue them. They were embraced fully in a way Daenerys never had been. They weren’t conquerors reclaiming their birthright; they were sent from the gods to save Westeros. Jon knew this thinking terrified Sansa, it scared him to hear too. Bran had already died, another brother who had been king that Jon had wept for. He was tired of losing everyone he loved.

What bothered him most was that they had Drogon with them. Neither the man nor the woman rode the dragon, but he followed their commands. They called him brother. Just like Daenerys, they executed with dragonfire, claiming that “Fire was a better death than beheading; it cleanses as it kills.”

It disturbed Jon to hear these tales. He knew they were nonsense, but still, the twist in his gut grew as the stories continued.

Sam sent a message asking him if it could be possible that Daenerys wasn’t dead. His friend worded it delicately, but Jon knows how to stab to kill and has seen enough death to know when he held it in his arms. It was a dumb question and they both knew it. What really stood out to him was what Sam didn’t ask. He said nothing about who fathered these children, asked no questions concerning the fact that they appear to be an age to have been conceived around the fight against the dead. Or any questions about if Jon had ever fucked his aunt.

There was no way such a thing could be. If Daenerys somehow lived and managed to have children she told him were impossible...It was too unbelievable. Dead men living and dragons reborn, Jon could believe. Hells, he’d been dead and brought back, but not unborn children. Not Daenerys.

Drogon was where Jon’s thoughts focused again. They must be pretenders, but how did they tame the dragon? And if they did, why did neither ride him?

Jon knew the only answer to that was the impossible one: these children are exactly who they say they are and Daenerys lives. Somewhere in the world, Daenerys Targaryen was alive. Her dragon was the proof. She must have taken another lover or perhaps returned to that Essos one she mentioned before and had the children he thought she was capable of having.

Jon’s heart both lept and crashed at such knowledge. The guilt never subsided, never left him. Neither did the love. He wasn’t sure which emotion was worse.

He read Sansa's latest note again, begging him to return to Winterfell as the twins were coming North. Jon didn’t want Winterfell to burn, didn’t want Sansa to die.

But she had wanted to be Queen in the North, what the fuck did she think it was? It was her duty to protect her home. He’d been banished to the Wall.

The Wall. Jon decided he’d neglected his duties too long. He put the note away and began to make preparations to return to the Wall. He goes to his tent and pulls out the one thing he had left from her. Tyrion had handed it to him when he’d left King’s Landing. He’d said, “You are the last Targaryen after all.”

Jon had thought of throwing it in the dirt then and there, still angry and upset, but he held onto it instead. And here he looked at it, a crown, with three dancing dragons and encrusted with rubies. He looked at it and hated it. That fucking throne had destroyed everything. Being a Targaryen destroyed everything for him.

And now, they were back for more. He threw the crown back into his pack, not ready to part with it, despite his disgust. Targaryens. Dragons.

Fire and blood, the words chill Jon in a way the cold no longer does.

 

* * *

 

A hawk came with their message tied to its leg a week ago.

> “We offer you the same terms as our ancestor, Aegon the Conqueror. Submit or see the end of your line. You may live our new world or die in your old one.”

Most of the Kingdoms were choosing to bend the knee. The entirety of the Reach and Storm’s End had. Dorne wasn’t getting the same treatment as the rest, but they were apparently in talks with these Targaryens. They were the ones that seemed to benefiting the most so far from the change in rulers, as they had stayed loyal to their mother in the “dark times,” as the bards were calling Bran’s rule now.

Sansa remembered when they hailed Bran Stark as an end to Targaryen madness, now they were running back into dragon’s arms.

Casterly Rock, run by some Lannister cousin who managed to make it through all the wars, had bent the knee though a couple of their banners hadn’t, and they’d burned. Apparently the dragon burnt the castle while the army surrounded it, finishing off any survivors. The Vale and the Riverlands had met similar fates, most knelt (including both of her cousins) and those that didn’t faced destruction. 

Sansa knew White Harbor had chosen to kneel and gave these false rulers the North. Wynafryd Manderly was no fool; the Targaryens had already promised to do away with the inheritance rules only applying to men. If Sansa refused to give them Winterfell, Lady Manderly would be made Wardeness of the North.

The North was proving to be the most stubborn kingdom for the Targaryens, which gave their queen some amount of pleasure to see. Even though their defiance was useless as they burned for it. Nothing stopped these dragons. Her husband’s house, Glover, had proven to be as changeable as ever. They had knelt despite their promise to stay loyal to the Starks for a thousand years.

She was alone again, her husband had fled in the face of the dragon’s message. Their marriage had produced no children, so Sansa had no one but Arya who was the gods knew where and Jon at the Wall. She wished Jon would listen to her and talk to these rulers who claimed to be his son and daughter. He might be able to save her and the people of Winterfell. But he ignored her, as he always had.

She had asked Jon to return to Winterfell, not sure how she might use him, but if these two truly believed Jon was their father, he might be of use to her. She didn’t want any harm to come to her brother, of course, but these dragons didn’t know that. If Daenerys Targaryen did live and did tell the pretenders about Westeros, who knows what other lies she spread?

If they truly were the children of Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa guessed that they would see themselves as heroes, just as their mother had. Their offers of “mercy” were always extended to everyone. If anyone fled the city and knelt before the time was up, they would be spared. These Targaryens claimed to be champions for the small folk, as Aegon the Unlikely before them, but Sansa thought they would probably end up with the same mixed results as their forebear.

There were already some religious riots happening away from the sight of the dragons.The followers of the Seven warring with the followers of the Lord of Light. It was no secret which religion the new rulers followed, and the converts were growing despite the Faith of the Seven being the dominant religion for centuries. The Targaryens had done nothing to solve this problem yet.

If the king was the fanatic people claimed him to be, Sansa suspected their next ultimatum would be convert to our faith or burn in your old one.

How many subjects would these Targaryens have left when they finished their purges?

“Your grace,” a guard entered. “A party approaches.”

Sansa nodded, dismissing the man. Her shoulders went back as she pulled herself to her full height. It was time to hear what these Targaryens had to say. She made her way to the gate, climbing the stairs to look down on those who approached. Two riders separated from the group. Sansa presumed them to be the king and queen. Her eyes searched the skies for the dragon, but she didn’t see him.

She was reminded of Jon’s homecoming, all those years ago. When he’d ridden beside his chosen queen. If Sansa had had to choose when they were kids, Jon would have been the last brother she would have picked to be so foolish in love. Jon had always seemed the most level headed when it came to girls, much more than Robb or Theon. Yet he’d fallen so hard for the Dragon Queen, he’d given his home away to her and couldn’t hide his smile at the thought of her. Sansa might have found it romantic when she’d been a foolish little girl who actually believed in the songs of brave knights and fair maidens.

But she had just seen her brother as a lovesick fool, making the same mistake as Robb, only on a far grander scale. She supposed that was due to his Targaryen blood. Targaryens never did anything small.

The alleged Targaryens pulled the reins on their horses, keeping out of range from archers. Smart, Sansa thought.

The dragon roared, swooping overhead suddenly and scaring everyone. Sansa had stayed standing unlike most of the guards, but she stared after the massive beast. He appeared to be even larger than he had been. The dragon looped around, roaring again as it passed over Winterfell before landing near the king and queen.

With the dragon’s protection, the king and queen walked closer, their caution pushed aside. Sansa looked to her archers who were taking their positions again. They all still looked scared. They were too young. They didn’t remember when the dead invaded, weren’t bloodied by the wars the north had fought to earn their independence.

They were born in winter, but they were summer children all the same. Sansa couldn’t rely on them.

She looked to the Targaryens again, who had stopped about 50 feet from the main gate. Sansa could make them out now. The king possessed the Targaryen looks, as pretenders went, he was a good one.

The queen made Sansa’s breath catch. She looked like Arya. Not a perfect match, but she was a northern beauty rather than a Targaryen one. The Queen in the North looked to her men, who seemed confused by the other queen’s looks. Their eyes darted between the two.

Sansa said nothing, but cursed her Tully looks. She was still a beauty, just like her mother, but she had faced complaints during her rule that she was too southern or she had none of the north in her. She combated these insults well, but it still rankled that a so-called Targaryen queen would look the part of a northern one.

Sansa thought of Lyanna Stark, Jon’s mother. People were calling Daeron and Rhaella the new Aegon and Visenya, but she thought a new Rhaegar and Lyanna might be more appropriate. If their claims were true, they would have been their grandparents.

The king and queen looked to each other, silently communicating, and Sansa felt a stab of jealousy. She remembered her father and mother having such silent conversations; she had never had that, a true partner. Tyrion had been the closest.

The queen went ahead and yelled, “Cousin, is this anyway to greet your family?” Her eyes looked over the armed parapets. “Let us talk civilly.”

“The North remembers. It remembers what your grandfather did to mine. It remembers how your uncle kidnapped and raped my aunt. It remembers how your mother burned down King’s Landing, killing everyone and going as mad as her father.”

“Oh,” the queen inclined her head. “Then the north remembers that this place where I stand was once covered with the Dragon Queen’s dead soldiers, who fought to save Winterfell from the dead. The north remembers that my father was declared King of the North, a title given to him by his followers rather than given to him by his brother the king. The north remembers that Lyanna Stark ran away with Rhaegar Targaryen willingly, their love resulting in Jon Snow, who your father died still protecting. Your father took that secret to his grave to protect my father and you couldn’t keep it a day, despite your promise. The north remembers. Was there anything I forgot?”

Sansa didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected this. The anger and bitterness, these strangers calling her family, using their imagined bonds against her.

The queen named Rhaella continued, “They say you are smart, cousin. You are a barren queen with no heirs. Even if we left now, never to bother you again, you would die alone in your castle, and I would inherit your claim. I am the eldest eligible Stark left.”

“Arya…”

“Arya is never coming back. I know her mind better than you do and she won’t return in time to save you. She won’t return at all.”

Sansa knew that was true. Still she steeled herself, narrowing her eyes. “You are no Stark.”

“I’m more Stark than you, Tully queen.” Her eyes turned back to the guards again. “Let’s ask your men, hmm? Which one of us looks like a real northern queen?”

Sansa didn’t look at her men’s reaction, instead she focused on the king. The king who had stayed silent. He looked too Targaryen to hurl such insults. He was an easier target. “And what of your Targaryen king?"

“What of him? Two Kings in the North have bent the knee to Targaryen rulers. You’d do well to do the same, cousin.”

“If I remember correctly, the last King in the North also killed the last Targaryen ruler. I believe that frees us from our obligations. The North is free and independent and you are not welcome here.”

“Yes, I know the king killed his queen. I was there after all. Where were you, Lady Stark?” Rhaella paused as if to give it some thought. “Hiding in Winterfell. Just as you hid when the dead came for you. Just like you stayed out of the battle for Winterfell. Tell me, have you ever fought your own battle?”

Sansa bristled. Just because she was a lady in a dress rather than a man in armor, gave no one the right to criticize her for not fighting. “You think that’s the most important quality in a ruler? Their ability to fight?”

“No, and don’t mistake me. I can wear a fine dress and play in flowers with the best of them. But I can also tell you how your little brother shuddered after my dagger pierced his heart.”

Sansa hardened. “If you are truly my cousin,” she spat the word, “then you are a kinslayer as well as a kingslayer.”

“Bran Stark died when the Three-Eyed Raven took his body. I saved him.”

“Much like the Mad Queen saved King’s Landing.”

“You would’ve preferred Cersei on the throne? Convenient for all of you to hate the woman after she saves you.”

“Arya Stark was the hero of the Long Night, not Daenerys Targaryen.”

“Yes, I’m sure she would have survived the waves of dead without the additional armies or dragons to manage it without the Dragon Queen.”

Sansa decided it was time to move beyond the past. “Winterfell can never be yours. It belongs to a Stark, not the Targaryens.”

“We have Stark blood too.” Rhaella paused. “We have no wish to fight. Join us. You are our lost family. I want this to be a pleasant visit. I would love for you to show us Winterfell through your eyes. I would love to hear stories of our father’s time as a child. You are what’s preventing that. Please. You cannot rule effectively by trusting no one.”

“And I should trust you? You murdered my brother. Your family is full of murderers.”

“All noble families are full of murderers. Power is terrible.” Rhaella sighed and looked to her king again. He opened his arm to her and Rhaella let him hug her to him. Sansa watched as Daeron kissed Rhaella’s forehead, much like her father had done for her. She’d felt so safe then, in her brave and noble father’s arms.

Sansa decided that she’d had enough talking. “Loose your arrows,” she ordered.

The dragon roared and put his bulk between the queen and king and her arrows. They bounced off the tough dragonhide. Sansa told her archers to aim for the beast’s eyes, and watched as the king and queen retreated.

When they were out of range and back on their horses, the king finally spoke, addressing the crowds rather than Sansa, “We shall return at the sun’s peak tomorrow. There is no need for you all to die for a queen who won’t kneel to save you.”

Sansa and Rhaella exchanged one more look before the Targaryen rode away.

 

* * *

 

Winterfell was no more. It was just ashes and melted stone, like Hardenhall. This time the dragon had spared King’s Landing, but Jon’s home hadn’t been so lucky. He hated the dragon and these pretenders for what they’d done.

The news destroyed him. Jon remembered running through the godswood, playing in the greenhouses, hiding in the crypts. He remembered his home, his family, and all the things lost to him now.

The North seemed to be bearing the brunt of the so-called “dragons’ revenge,” as they were burning almost the entirety of the North. He was told in warning, as these mummer’s dragons were coming for the Wall next. Jon didn’t care about that. Let them come, he thought, gripping Longclaw. Let them meet the last true Targaryen.

Jon wanted to avenge his family and home, wanted to ride out to meet his enemies, but he was sent to the wall for a reason. This was his punishment and it was a matter honor and duty that he stay.

Honor and duty -- they were all he had anymore.

 

* * *

 

They came. Jon rode out to meet them, the Free Folk and the still rebuilding Night’s Watch at his back. The dragon came first, announcing his enemies. Jon almost felt a longing at seeing Drogon again, remembered the good rather than the bad of him and his mother.

But then the bad came flooding back, the smell of burnt bodies and he looked across the open field at the gathered forces in front of him with disdain. He knelt to Daenerys, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake now.

He studied the faces, as they were close enough to see. The boy did look like a Targaryen, but the girl reminded him of Arya. She was the one that made his breath catch, the one that made him wonder if maybe he was wrong. What if these were his children?

No, Daenerys had definitely died.

Just like he had died when he’d been stabbed.

Jon put the circular thoughts aside. He could brood on them later. He had to be present now. He recognized Grey Worm as well, glaring at him as he had all those years ago at his trial. He wasn't surprised to find him here. Grey Worm had wanted to see him dead since Daenerys’ body went missing, only a puddle of blood to show what he’d done.

Jon had just sat in the broken throne room crying after Drogon left. He’d nearly begged Grey Worm to kill him then and there, but a trial was decided on. Jon had hated the mercy. He had been sick of cheating death.

Before he could lose himself in memories, Jon leaned over to whisper to Bonerattle, his commander. “Be prepared for anything. Targaryens are dangerous.”

And deadly and beautiful and great. Even the terrible ones were usually terrible on a grand scale.

An order was called out and the men put up their arkahs. Jon didn’t think Dothraki were in front of him, but the woman went to one and did as Melisandre did before the Long Night, setting them aflame. It was a deliberate manipulation, but it worked as Jon was instantly reminded of that night, of what was lost and what was won.

And he knows those who remember that battle behind him are thinking the same thing.

The queen yelled, still on her horse, “Do the Free Folk remember those who gave them freedom? Do they remember the men that died at their side against the dead? Do they remember the dragons who saved them? Send out Jon Snow.” She unsheathed her daggers which then caught fire. Jon could feel the army behind him prepare for a fight. He wouldn’t let them. He gave a signal for them to keep their weapons in their scabbards.

The king, who’d rushed to his queen’s side, added quickly, “We will not hurt him. We just want to speak with Jon Snow.” They both dismounted and walked towards the middle of the potential battlefield. Jon followed their actions, also climbing from his horse and walking on foot.

As they came closer together, Jon saw the rulers arguing with each other. He looked to Bonerattle, signalling them to stay put. He overheard the last part of their argument.

“...that tone with me.”

“There was no tone, Rhae.”

“He’s no father. He murdered us. He murdered us while while we were still in our mother’s belly.”

The words made Jon stop walking. Is that what they thought of him? He didn’t believe their tale of being his children, but they clearly did.

And they hated him.

“Just stop it. Let me handle the talking.”

“Fine, but I’m slitting his throat if he comes near me.”

“Fine,” was the clipped reply.

They stopped and looked up, surprised to see that Jon was so close, but had stopped walking.

They watched each other, awkwardly for a moment. Then the man spoke, “I’ve been told since I was a boy that my father was a brave warrior. Don’t tell me that wasn’t true either.”

Jon wondered at that, but it forced him to walk the rest of the way, standing before his “children.”

He could see the emotion on his son’s face, something between sorrow and relief. His daughter paced behind her brother, shooting looks his way with rapidity, twirling her blades. She was just so angry. It broke Jon’s heart to see.

He reminded himself that these weren’t his children. Never mind the woman’s hair matching his. It wasn’t possible.

Jon’s past words to Daenerys echoed in his mind. “Maybe you can make other impossible things happen.” “Your line hasn’t seen its end.”

“I love you.” “You will be my queen, always.”

He shoved such memories aside. He could torture himself later. He gathered himself up and put on the regal bearing he’d once tried for as King in the North. “Who are you? Why have you come here?”

The man seemed taken aback, but he said, “I am King Daeron Targaryen. I now rule the Seven Kingdoms with my queen Rhaella Targaryen.” He paused. “This is our last stop. You are the last people to be given the choice: bend the knee or burn.”

“The Free Folk aren’t kneelers and the Watch knows no kings or queens.” Jon’s eyes flitted to the still pacing woman.

“I know...I…” Jon couldn’t help but think that Daeron wasn’t acting much like a king, but then he never had either. “Are you truly Jon Snow?”

“Yes,” Jon said, squaring his shoulders, hiding any emotion.

“You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.” Violet eyes looked him up and down.

Never heard that one before, Jon thought sardonically. He said nothing out loud.

“You don’t believe we’re your children. I understand that. It hurts, but I get it. Politically, well, that doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? Everyone has submitted or died. It’s not a pleasant way to start a rule, but when you intend to rebuild a country anyway, best to just start with the solid rafters. Get rid of the rot and weakness.”

Jon wanted to ask why his family would be included in the weak and rotten. Starks were known for their honor and strength. These Targaryen pretenders were just wiping out anyone who didn’t dance their tune. They were mad tyrants, like many dragons before them.

The king took a step forward. “Personally, it would be devastating. You’re already a kinslayer and a queenslayer, to add the fact you murdered your own children?” The man touched the hilt at his side. “I can’t imagine a worse punishment.”

Jon’s eyes settled at the blade strapped to his son’s side. The rumor was that it was Dark Sister found again. Daeron misinterpreted the look. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I’m no kinslayer. I’m a better man than you ever were.” The words gutted Jon worse than the sword would have.

Jon decided to try diplomacy, let this man have his delusions, “I hear you’re good with that. A true Targaryen warrior.”

Daeron shrugged. “I hate it. I’d rather a maester’s chain than a king’s crown and warrior’s sword, but the Lord of Light decides the fate of men.”

Jon wished he knew this man. If he were his son, Jon might understand him. He knew well enough what it was to be a play thing for the gods.

Though this man didn’t follow the old gods Jon did. Probably knew nothing of them, having been raised in a Red Temple rather than the north.

The woman seemed to have some of the north in her. She looked so much like Arya, held herself with the same warrior’s grace. But the anger in those violet eyes was all Daenerys. He remembered how such a look once excited him. How Daenerys’ anger had once inflamed his lust.

In these stranger’s eyes though, it terrified him to see such things.

Jon tried again to leave the past where it was and focus on the people in front of them.

The king seemed to have settled his own emotions and adapted a conversational tone that didn’t match the army behind him. “You are right. The Night’s Watch never did bow.” He nodded to those behind Jon. “Nor the Free Folk. But it still behooves us to see our people, which you all are, as you are in our realm.”

The woman stood beside her brother now, her flamed blades still out, but she let her leg open so her thigh brushed against her brother’s. The man touched the thigh in acknowledgement. It was the kind of easy intimacy Jon had longed for his entire life.

The kind he’d thrown away in the name of duty.

“So what have you been doing these 20 years, Jon Snow? What has the Night’s Watch been watching?”

Jon sighed. “That’s a long story.”

“We’ve got the time if Castle Black has the room.”

Jon thought about it. He counted the army this king and queen brought with them. They outnumbered them. If it turned to treachery, Jon and the Free Folk wouldn’t be able to stop them.

Then Jon heard a sound that had plagued his nightmares, Drogon’s roar. Both king and queen looked up as the black dragon, even bigger now than Jon remembered, landed behind them. Between his so-called brother and sister and their army.

So any thought of fighting was truly pointless. Before Jon think better of it, he asked, “How did you tame her dragon? Drogon was the fiercest of the three, I was the only other human to even touch him.”

Both Daeron and Rhaella seemed surprised. “When did you ever touch Drogon?” Daeron asked.

“After his mother returned from battle. He landed in front of me and let me pet his snout.”

Daeron looked back to Drogon as if to confirm if the story was true. Rhaella’s mouth set into a firm line. “You lie.”

“I may be a kinslayer and a queenslayer, but I’ve never been known as a liar.” He looked at Drogon again. Drogon was no Sheepstealer, they couldn’t have tamed him just by feeding him as that shepherd girl had. So how had they done it? It was the one part of the ruse he couldn’t figure out.

They clearly had Valyrian blood, maybe they were a distant Targaryen relation from one of the ones banished to Essos long ago?

Jon turned to Rhaella, wanting to speak with her. He took a step towards her, but she flinched back, raising her daggers. “Mother told me what you did. You’re as mad as she ever was if you think I’ll ever let you touch me.”

“Did she tell what she did?” Jon could feel the anger return, lapping at the edge of his voice. “Did she tell you about the innocent children she burned in the arms of their mothers? How their bodies of ash crumbled to nothing if you touched them?”

“Yes,” Daeron answered. “She told us and we saw it ourselves when we walked through Winterfell. Did you know that Sansa died on her throne? The weight of her crown crumbled her body before we even got there.”

Jon felt the pain hit his gut and he wanted to kill these two for what they’d done. His hand went to Longclaw’s hilt.

“Don’t,” Rhaella warned.

Jon took several deep breaths. He looked at Daeron and said, “You are liars. You claim not to be conquerors yet you have won back your birthright and rule the Seven Kingdoms.”

“We’re bastards,” Daeron answered. “We have no birthright. You might remember what that was like, being raised one yourself.”

Jon really had broken every vow he’d ever made. No, these were pretenders. They were not his children. He turned back to look at those that followed him. He could see that they probably couldn’t hear what was actually being said. They seemed ready for a fight.

Rhaella said, “Look at your son.” He looked at her instead. “He loved you. He used to cry for his father when he was sleeping.”

Jon remembered similar nights, longing for his mother. Whoever these two were, his heart went out to them for not having a father. An image of Daenerys slipped into his mind, where she was caring for younger versions of the twins before him. The mother he’d never had.

The king seemed embarrassed at his queen’s confession. “She’s exaggerating. I don’t really sleep.” He looked at Jon and asked, “Did you sleep much after they killed you?”

Jon was honest. “No, I almost never sleep well.” Only with Daenerys had he ever slept well after what his brothers did to him. Exhausted from lovemaking and wrapped tightly in her arms, he slept better than he ever had.

“We were born dead,” Daeron said. “We’ve never slept well. It’s too hard when you see the daggers always surrounding you. When you know the only people you can trust are your family, and you need to keep an eye on them as well.” Dark violet met dark grey for a moment. “That’s what I learned from you, father.”

“Trusting no one is just as foolish as trusting everyone,” Jon said with a sigh.

Rhaella’s face shifted to surprise. “That’s what mother always says.”

Daenerys. Jon’s heart hardened. “If you truly are Daenerys Targaryen’s children, then it’s little wonder that you’re monsters. She is the mother of monsters.”

Daeron’s eyes filled with tears and he spat out through clenched teeth. “I spent years longing for you, wanting to know you, hoping to meet you someday. You are such a disappointment. You are nothing but a broken, useless, stupid man.”

Rhaella finally put away her daggers so she could put her arms around her king to comfort him. But Daeron didn’t seem to notice, as he continued. “Mother doesn’t believe in the gods, but I follow the Lord of the Light. He is just. Your punishment was never the Wall. Tell me, father. How does it feel to not know your own son? To have never have held your daughter and know you never will?”

Jon tried not to let the lies affect him, but it was hard. There was such anger in this man’s voice. Anger he knew well.

Daeron shook his head. “I never need to see you again.” He looked to his sister. “Let’s return to Dragonstone. We’ll rule and rebuild this kingdom.” He began to walk away, tearing himself from her embrace.

But then he stopped and turned back around. “Oh, wait, I have something of yours.” Daeron handed Jon the dagger he put through Daenerys’ heart. “Thankfully you put it in her heart for a quick, clean death rather than her belly. You really might have killed me or Rhaella otherwise.”

Jon knew this blade as well as Longclaw. No Essosi pretender would know it. The truth, the horrible truth crashed upon him and Jon barely stayed standing. Daeron watched him for a moment longer, getting the same sorrowful look Jon recognized from the mirror. “You chose to be an honorable Stark rather than a powerful Targaryen, father. I hope it made you happy.”

Daeron walked over to his sister, and they took each other’s hands. The queen looked at Jon coolly. “Good-bye, Jon Snow.”

They left together. Their armies and the dragon following them.

Jon collapsed and sobbed once they left, not caring about all those behind him, who looked at him as a leader. He wanted to continue thinking it was a lie, but he knew it was the truth now. Just as he’d known what Sam said about his parents was true. This was the blade he’d used to kill Daenerys. Even if they’d found it near Drogon, they wouldn’t know what it was. Someone had to tell them. Only Tyrion and Daenerys would know, and there was no benefit to Tyrion to have Targaryens return. The simplest explanation was often the true one, and the simple, if impossible, answer was that those two were his resurrected son and daughter. His only children who were strangers to him. Bastards he’d sworn never to father.

The gods were indeed cruel to oathbreakers, kinslayers and queenslayers.

Through his tears and sorrow a thought broke through, the children don’t ride the dragon.

Dragons only have one rider.

Daenerys Targaryen must be alive.

Jon wept harder.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys never intended to be in Westeros again, but she rode Drogon back after years of pressure from her children. It wasn’t until they announced their first child, a girl, her first grandchild, that she finally climbed on her eldest son’s back. 

But Drogon didn't take her to her children or her new grandchild. He took her to the waterfall instead.

Jon was there.

It had been too long for her fury to still be there, but the betrayal stung as though it happened yesterday. Jon was an old man now, older than his years. His once dark curls were closer to her own hair color now. She thought he was finally beginning to look like a Targaryen. She dismounted from Drogon and approached him. Jon looked at her as if he wasn’t sure she was real. Daenerys asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be at the Wall, queenslayer?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or do they call you kinslayer instead?”

Jon took the hit without reaction. “They don’t call me anything. No one remembers any of that. Or if they do, they no longer care.” He sighed. “People have such short memories.”

Daenerys couldn’t disagree with that. She had been the Mad Queen, but her children had been hailed as the return of the Targaryens, the true rulers of Westeros, saving them from the evil of the Three-Eyed Raven and his Imp advisor. People remembered nothing when it suited them.

She looked around at the only beauty she had ever found in this cold land. The waterfalls where Jon had hunted as a child. He had told her the story, acting like a giddy lad she could see in her mind. She had loved him so much in that moment. Had wanted to give him a son, who would grow to be as honorable as his father.

It was cruel how life turned out.

“What are you doing here, Dany?” The name made Daenerys’ heart break. No one had called her that after him.

She tried to hide that emotion though. “Drogon brought me here,” she answered. 

Jon’s eyebrow went up. “I can see that. I’ve gotten older but my eyesight hasn’t left me just yet.”

Daenerys let out a puff of air. She had forgotten Jon’s rare humor. Her eyes kept drifting over him, noting the differences of age and what remained the same.

He was still so handsome. Her heart had always ached at the sight of him, and to her displeasure, she found that had not changed.

She thought about telling him about their grandchild. He wouldn’t know if he was out here alone. But then that was presumptuous. If he’d left the Wall, he’d probably forsaken his other vows again. He might have a wife and new family waiting somewhere nearby. Daenerys felt the jealousy she had no right to feel come hard and fast. She asked, in what she hoped to be an uncaring tone, “Are you here with anyone? Your wife, perhaps?”

Jon looked at her with a flash of anger. “There was no one after you, Dany.” He snorted. “Who could replace you?”

Daenerys decided to open up a bit, though she knew it might be a mistake. “There was no one after you either, Jon. I had a hard time trusting men after everything that happened.”

Jon was still angry. “You got your revenge. They hate me. My own children hate me.”

Daenerys wanted to comfort him, wanted to hold him, but she thought her touch wouldn’t be welcome, so she stayed back. “I tried not to do that, but I hated you too. I told them you were brave and a warrior. They believed you were dead when they were young. When they found out the truth, of what I did and what you did. Well, it’s easier to forgive the parent you love. Easier to hate the parent you don’t know.”

“I kind of hate you for that you for that, you know. That you stole my children from me.”

Her own anger was rising now. “I don’t care. I think you will have always wronged me more. Or do you ever try to see the point of view of the brothers who gave you that scared chest I once loved?” And she had loved it. She had kissed every inch of it; traced each scar with her tongue to heal what would never heal.

“I was saving people, you burned them.” But Jon’s words didn’t hold the malice or justification she expected. He looked to her heart. Daenerys’ hand went over where her scar was. Jon said nothing, but Daenerys found she could still read his eyes. He would return the favor if she would let him. He would try to heal the pain with his own lips and tongue.

She felt the weakness of wanting to let him. She had missed him. Desperately. She hadn’t known it until seeing him again, but she just wanted to go back to when it was all sweetness between them. She couldn’t forgive him, but she still wanted him. Still longed for the happiest days of her life, the ones where they had been together. Even her children never made her smile as he did.

And here they were, in the place that stood as one of the brightest in her memories.  

Jon said, “We never should have left here. We should have stayed a thousand years.”

“We are pretty old, Jon.”

He smiled at the memory, at his own stupid words. Against her will, the smile warmed a part of Daenerys’ heart she thought dead. The part of her heart that he had killed, stabbed through with a dagger.

“I’m sorry, Dany. I…”

She interrupted him. “I don’t forgive you. You destroyed us, Jon. I can never forgive that.”

He looked wounded by her words. Daenerys expected some pleasure at that, hurting him as he hurt her, but she didn’t feel anything but sad. She loved this man. Damn her, she still loved him. Despite everything. Once you gave your heart to someone, you could never just take it back.

“I do understand it though.” And she did. It had taken her years, but she understood why Jon felt he needed to do what he did. He said nothing in return, which she was glad for. She may have understood, but she didn’t want to hear his justifications. Just as he hadn’t wanted to hear hers for her own horrible deed.

Daenerys decided to leave the past where it was for a moment. “You’re a grandfather now, did you know?”

Jon closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they held that sorrow that was so common in them. “Boy or girl?”

“Girl. They named her Daenys.”

Jon nodded. His eyes met Daenerys’. “It’s a good name.”

She broke away. “I never wanted to come back. Everything went wrong for me here. I lost everything. Even myself.” Daenerys tried to forget the past, but it consumed her now. All of the loss, all of the fear, the loneliness, the anger, the madness.

Jon pointed out. “If you hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have Daeron and Rhaella.”

She knew that was true. It was why she could never fully regret it all. Her children were miracles that wouldn’t have happened without Jon Snow. She wanted to hate him and wish she had never met him, but then Rhaella smiled at her or Daeron would struggle to pronounce a word from one of his books, and her heart would melt and she knew she would always be grateful for what Jon Snow had given her. He had taken her dragons, her armies, her body, and her sanity to fight his war.

But he had given her everything in return. It was a trade Daenerys would always make.

“What were they like? As children? I met them but…”

He didn’t need to explain. She knew what Daeron and Rhaella were like now -- true Targaryens, beautiful, deadly and a bit cruel. “They were very sweet. Rhaella liked to climb trees and run and ride horses. Her silk dresses constantly torn and dirty, but when I tried to give her leather pants, she refused to wear them. Daeron read every book he could and loved helping me tend to the sick in the Temple. He was the more sensitive one, the one that would cry when he found an animal he couldn’t bring back.” Daenerys sometimes missed those children. She was proud of who they had become, but just like her dragons, she missed when they were small enough to cuddle with.

Jon said nothing, but he clearly absorbed every word. After they stood in silence for a moment, Jon went to his belt and began to untie Longclaw. He walked over to Daenerys and handed it to her. “Daeron should have this, or one of the girls if they can lift it. I know he won’t accept it from me, but…” He didn’t finish, and Daenerys understood.

She held the sword in her hands and for a moment thought of unsheathing it and burying it in Jon. Pay him back, blood for blood. She owed him that much.

But she didn’t believe she had the strength to lift the blade and didn’t want to besides. She knew he would be able to overpower her anyway, but this broken man before her wouldn’t fight back, she also knew that. She saw the ring she always intended to give to Rhaella. Both children should receive heirlooms. “What happened to us, Jon? How did it go so wrong?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I could go back and fix it.”

Daenerys made a decision, handing Jon Longclaw back so he could give it to his son himself. “Come on, Jon. Let’s go meet our granddaughter.”

He seemed confused, looking at the sword and then Daenerys. He clearly won’t follow her to Drogon. It was a fair worry, Daenerys thought. “What? I don’t…”

“Children shouldn’t pay for the sins of their parents. You never got to hold Daeron or Rhaella as babes. You might never know them now. Do you want to miss Daenys as well?” She walked over and gathering her courage kissed his check. “Come, my love. Let the past remain where it is.”

Daenerys remembered the look in Jon’s eyes, the look of awe. So many have looked with her with awe, her former titles and accomplishments beyond what most could achieve. But it was different in Jon’s eyes, it always was. He was in awe of her as well as in love. It was a look Daenerys had missed so much. Jon whispered, “I never deserved you.”

Daenerys guided them to her dragon. “No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “But then, I made worse mistakes than you. I was cruel and evil where you were always good. Perhaps our fates were always determined by the fires.” The priests and priestesses told her often how she and her children were instruments of the Lord of Light. That their stories were written in the fires. She hated the idea, but her faith in herself had been as misguided as faith in some lord of light, so who could say?

His hand squeezed hers, turning Daenerys into a young woman again, sitting on a boat finally accepting the man she loved loved her in return.

She squeezed back.


End file.
